


Trails of Cold Steel III Alternative

by FishyFish_R



Category: The Legend of Heroes: Crossbell Arc (Zero & Ao no Kiseki) (Video Games), 英雄伝説 閃の軌跡 | The Legend of Heroes: Sen no kiseki (Video Games), 英雄伝説VI 空の軌跡 | The Legend of Heroes: Sora no Kiseki (Video Games)
Genre: Alternative Events, Alternative Perspective, Crack Pairings, F/M, Gen, Humor, M/M, Parody, reversed good & evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2018-12-21 09:18:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11941065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FishyFish_R/pseuds/FishyFish_R
Summary: The Iron Bloods'-centric and Osborne-centric parody fic. Reversed good & evil. Makes fun of JRPG character tropes, common architectural JRPG design choices, etc. Pairings: Claire x Lechter, Millium x Campanella, Altina x secret.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> If you're reading this, then:
> 
> 1) You're expected to have played CS I & II. You're also expected to know some news of the absurdities that are to come in CS3, like the existence of vampires *kills herself in despair*, previously tragically dead characters cheaply resurrected thanks to that, fanservice that's going to destroy characterization, etc. You're also supposed to know (or you can learn right now and right here) this exciting pre-release detail: apparently in a year and a half between CS2 & CS3 Osborne had conquered a small, dirt poor country known as North Ambria... :-)
> 
> Actually, this fic won't have any vampires, it wouldn't be an 'alternative' if it did, so don't run away in horror yet. North Ambria will get a mention, though.
> 
> 2) There are some references to other games in the Trails franchise, but they aren't major and you can probably live without understanding them. I tried hard to avoid anything that would actually spoil the story of those games, b/c I hate spoilers and many people who've played Cold Steel games most likely never played the prior games. But still knowledge of the prior games will greatly enhance the experience of reading this fic.

**PROLOGUE. TOP SECRET BIOS**

 

The first thing you see after booting up the game is that you aren't playing as a school student anymore. maybe that's good, maybe that's bad, you do not know yet. But how did that happen anyway?  
  
Here's top secret information that is being told to you during the intro of the game by a voice of an all-seeing Aidios:   
  
'Suddenly a strike of lightning (*whisper* caused by my divine powers) burnt all CS3 game writers to a crisp, but naturally they got resurrected as vampires (*whisper* by yours truly) and had to live the rest of their days as such. They suffered and suffered, until one day they realized how horribly stupid of an idea it was to bring in the vampires to CS3. They wept with shame. Then they realized more, like how other ideas of theirs were bad. Feeling guilty, they scrapped everything they've written for CS3, delayed the release and started changing things around.  
  
And that is why, instead of playing as a boring doormate Rean, you get to play as a team of awesome Ironbloods! Your primary characters in CS3 will be:  
  
*You see an image of a file on your screen, ‘TOP SECRET’ is written on its face, and it is opened up painfully slowly by an unseen hand of Aidios…*

 

*…and a picture of Claire Rieveldt rolls up*  
  
[she looks professional, staring intensely into the camera with a gun in hand and wearing her military uniform]  
  
*her CS3 bio follows in the file:*  
  
1)  **Claire the Icy Maiden**

Behold the Icy Maiden worthy of her title and status. She finally got cured of her ridiculous crush on a boy unworthy of her, after having a serious talk with her father figure Osborne. Now she realizes that she's married to her job, first and foremost, but if she ever considered having a relationship with someone, she'd like for that person to be, first and foremost, someone relaxing and fun, someone she could take a real break with, after yet another hard day of work and responsibility. 

Having been cured of her traumatic obsession with a boy inferior to her in all ways -- an obsession rooted in her own misguided feelings of inferiority -- she stopped putting padding inside of her bra (a ritual apparently practiced by most women in CS1-2, which now makes her worry about their mental health) and now enjoys looking like herself and accepting her for herself.

The therapy has not yet ended, however. During the last talk she's had with Osborne she expressed doubts about her title. Why was she called The Icy Maiden, but in the games behaved so touchy-feely and wore a look of a innocence and naivete? She, a supposedly professional high-ranked soldier who'd seen her share of violence and death? Thanks to that conversation, she's realized that her personality was a self-contradicting bunch of lies and is now searching for her long lost real self.

 

 

*a page is flipped and a picture of Lechter Arundel rolls up*  
  
[He looks professional... or is trying to, dressed in fancy clothes and holding a broadsword; b/c seriously, the official artwork had given him a sword as thin as a needle, was that an April Fool's joke or just plain disrespect? :-)]  
  
*Aidios' voice continues:*  
  
2)  **Lechter**   **the Scarecrow**

For reasons unknown and truly incomprehensible to sane minds he'd undergone surgery for CS1-2 that aged him down visually for ~10 years from the times of Zero\Ao no Kiseki. But now he's back to looking like himself and quite dashing, thank you very much! Nothing like a 15y.o. boy who could easily turn out to be Elliot's secret brother! He also changed his eye color from fake green of CS games back to natural grey of previous games...

It's a mystery what compelled Lechter to undergo these appearance changes in the first place. Did Osborne somehow force him to? Well, fortunately for him, all the turmoil with appearances resulted in no mental trauma. He's just easy-going like that, so he didn't ever care for his looks or age. But well you see Claire most likely would... So he aged himself back up, just to be sure he had some chance with her.

In fact, he's so easy-going that he doesn't mind being called a Scarecrow, a title that sounds vaguely insulting and is genuinely puzzling. The game lore states that he's so good at striking secret deals that he received that nickname just for that, but what are we supposed to make of it? That all his amazing negotiation skill amounts to is scaring people to death with threats, thus 'scarecrow'? I wouldn't call that much of a negotiation skill, but... game logic.

At any rate, he finally discovered his true love (b/c the game would never give him one, all women existed just for Rean!) in Claire, but he doesn't know that she's free of her Rean yoke yet. And he genuinely has no idea how any woman is going to put up with him. But he had no idea how Osborne was going to put up with him and he did (which Lechter greatly admired him for), so he optimistically believes that there is a way to be his usual intolerable self and yet somehow be tolerated.

 

 

*a picture of Millium Orion rolls up, hugging an Osborne-gifted teddy dear to herself and sticking her tongue at us*  
  
3) **Millium the White Rabbit**  

She's always sticking around with the Ironbloods as a part of the team. Well, she's always around even when nobody wants her, which is a part of her charm. She finally dumped her robot, realizing that it's more interesting to fight on her own than rely on it, and is now doing her best to be as obnoxious as possible. Well that too is a part of her charm, kind of.

Like Claire, she got cured of a stupid crush by Osborne's surprisingly therapeutic grandad talks. How? He told her the hard truth: her crush only existed because all other females in the game had to have crushes on Rean and Millium was the only one considered unattractive enough to be left for the favourite of the girl audience: Jusis!

Millium was devastated to learn about it... but after accepting the truth she felt better. Now that her fake feelings are gone, she feels more true to herself and is eager to continue discovering who she really is, Jusis be damned.

At one point she came up with a sensible question: gramps, but why was I meant for Jusis if he's a girl favorite, wouldn't girls feel.. I don't know... _jealous_ of me? And Osborne told her another hard truth: right, that's exactly why Jusis kept rejecting and insulting you, Millium...

She cried again that night and resolved to be involved only in real relationships from that point on. That said, she also felt better when she understood that all those cruel words that Jusis told her -- even going out of his level-headed character for that -- weren't really _meant_ by him. He didn't choose to tell them, he just couldn't help it.

Her White Rabbit nickname mystifies her, just like it does everyone else around. Secretly Millium thinks that someone compared her face to that of a rabbit, a rabbit face, you know? Like horse face. How unnice. Why did they create an annoying character they disliked so much she wasn't even worthy to be a part of Rean's harem -- as insulting as it would've been for her -- and then gave her a ridiculous nickname, to boot?

Regardless of all these blows to self-esteem, Millium believes that she's a fine girl, and even if someone else is cruel and unfair to her, she always has her gramps to remind her that she's a fine girl. Gramps is the best, and he knows better than them!

 

  
  
* a picture of Altina Orion rolls up*  
  
[she looks wistful rather than empty-eyed]  
  
4)  **Altina the Black Rabbit**  

She makes a surprising comeback in this edition of CS3. She was totally irrelevant in CS2, but strangely she stuck around for CS3. The reason is that after looking at Claire’s true-to-herself new appearance, she stopped dressing like a child prostitute. It was all Duke Cayenne's fault, Altina said. He only agreed to have her around if she dressed like that, to her dismay. Even worse, he demanded from her to call everyone around perverts. After hearing her out, Osborne agreed to allow her to still be on the Ironblood team, recognizing that she is, indeed, a fine girl, just like Millium. She just doesn't know herself, b/c she had no personality before. At all.

Now there’s still not much to say about Altina’s personality, as it's still shallow and resembles an autist, but she knows for sure that she doesn’t want to be totally irrelevant anymore. She got rid of her robot after Millium told her that she’s even more irrelevant if she has one. They got kinda close over all this stuff and now Altina is looking to Millium for guidance.

Altina's nickname sprang up from her lack of knowledge of herself. Having no personality, she resolved to at least become an opposite of someone else, like Millium. It was a genius idea in its own right. Just think about it: how many people who don't know themselves, instead of choosing to blindly imitate someone else, resolved to be an opposite of someone else? It was supposed to keep Altina safely from losing herself once again in someone else's personality. As desperate as her strategy was, it was unusually smart, and Osborne in particular was certain that she had a lot of promise.

 

  
  
* a picture of Rufus Albarea rolls up*  
  
[He looks just like in official artwork *shrug*... but not like his 3D model that doesn’t look much like artwork, if that makes sense]  
  
5)  **Rufus the Jade Rook**

This one is too busy to be a part of the Ironblood team in the field, but he frequently contacts them. Strangely, he didn't have to come to terms with any trauma b/c the writers allowed him to live without it in the first place. What a lucky guy!

Rufus happened to show a hilariously dumb side to him at the end of CS2. Lechter took to calling him Rufus the Doofus, at least when he wasn't around to hear that, as Rufus had shown that he failed to understand the concept of social equality properly and hoped _for all peasants to become nobles_... Everyone around was so amused by it that they never corrected him, it was too funny to pay the price of never hearing it again. As a result, he is now a resident clown of the Ironbloods, although he doesn’t know it.

Why his nickname contains a word Jade when his first name literally means Red is beyond anyone's comprehension, maybe because he likes greenish clothes? But it was already beyond everyone's comprehension why his parents called him Red in the first place, so everybody has gotten used to everything about Rufus making no sense.

The only person who knows what his nickname really signifies (except the coloring, even he doesn't know _that!_ ) is Osborne. But the latter had shared that with me, grateful for the alternative to CS3, so here goes :-) In chess, a rook is a powerful piece -- powerful in its own right, a second most-powerful piece on the board -- that possesses a unique protective move for the king that no other piece is capable of. In short, it can move to cover the king with itself, if it happens to be close enough. It's called castling, short or long (depends on distance between the rook and the king), and it can only be executed once. Here's an example of short castling:

https://image.ibb.co/mzWJsQ/castling.jpg

Rufus happens to be the most handsome male character in the games -- not Jusis, that one is limited to class VII -- but strangely nothing has ever come of it. Perhaps he's there just to be a rarely seen eye candy or something. Even Rufus doesn't know. But he's secretly very happy that he's left alone on that account and isn't forced to pair up with someone and then be forced to insult them every step of the way, like his poor brother. Jusis had been complaining to him incessantly that these days it's enough for him just to see Millium to lose his head and start behaving like a low-born swine-hearder, insulting her with common words like 'fool', even though normally he's an extraordinary polite young noble and considers losing his cool weak and unworthy of his status.

 

  
  
* a picture of Gilliath Osborne rolls up*  
  
[He looks powerful and oddly pleased, surrounded by the Ironbloods like in a family picture]  
  
6)  **Gilliath the Mastermind**

Yeah, you haven’t misheard. Well, c’mon, why call him Osborne when everyone else gets called by their first name, is it some kind of agism? :-) Alright, alright, just kidding...

Unlike Rufus, this one had suffered through some trauma, although he remained coolly unaffected by it. The trauma he went through in Ao no Kiseki he'd brushed off as ‘Falcom’s smearing campaign’. Back then everyone in the game pretended that he was a 100% monster rather than every peasant’s in Erebonia favorite person and their beacon for equality. Really, no one ever mentioned that he'd done a single nice deed at all or had a single nice idea at all. Coz that would make people like him instead of hate him, and that’s not the point of a smearing campaign... right? No? Well, even if you disagree and you hate him, he doesn’t care what you think of him anyway. :-)

This one became notably handsome in CS games for some reason, in comparison to his old self from Sky: the 3rd (where he was quite ugly) and Ao no Kiseki (better, but so-so). This gradually beautiful aging mystifies him, but like Rufus, he feels relieved there are no consequences to that. Unlike Rufus, though, he's really sad about one little thing, even if he'd never admit it to anyone: even after living for 54 years, he has no proper family. A villain must be so villainous that he can't possibly be living with a family, right? Not even with just a wife? Nah, villains don't have wives, they can't be married, period.

The way that Osborne copes with his loneliness is by considering the Ironbloods his family.

 

*the top secret file is closed and promptly burnt for your own sake, because if Osborne ever learns that you've seen the last paragraph you'll be a corpse*


	2. Chapter 1. A Scheme Of Blood & Iron

*Aidios' voice is gone by this point and you start watching\playing...*

* * *

In the opening cutscene, an Ironblood secret conference is starting up inside of a military looking-room. What's a military-looking room? Ugh, it's one of those needlessly spacious rooms in the games, with boring grey walls and no furniture, except a rare wooden box or two tucked into a corner and maybe a chest with random goods. It's not the fault of game designers, really. Not at all. Erebonia just happens to be a Spartan dream.

Osborne stood up... -- wait, there's only a few chairs, let alone comfy armchairs in Erebonia (those can be found in mansions) -- so he most likely had nothing to stand up from at a Spartan military base... Let's try this once again: Osborne walked into the room _,_ slowly looked over everyone gathered inside, nodded approvingly and launched a speech. The Ironbloods sat down to listen... No, they were still standing, really, as we've established furniture was a rare and precious commodity. Gosh, let's get over the details and start the game already! Everybody in the room stood. Period.  
  
'Our primary goal at the moment', Osborne claimed, as if everyone hadn't already guessed what his main concern in CS3 would be. 'Is to prevent Ouroboros from successfully taking back their Phantom Blaze Project. It's not like I'm an evil mwahahaing dictator who steals their projects just because I want more power... You Ironbloods should be insightful enough to understand that the Ouroboros staff is too incompetent to run such impactful projects, which leaves me no choice but to take over. After all, you've all seen what happened at the end of CS2. Even an Ouroboros anguis, and that's a high-ranked individual, proved to be so careless and unprofessional that she messed up badly and nearly unleashed a mysterious apocalypse onto Erebonia'.

Everyone nodded synchronously. They've been thinking of it a lot after dodging the bullet like that.

'Hey gramps,' Millium said, smiling up at him. 'I want to know if my guess is right. You let Vita Clothilde go... It looked so strange to me and like a big oversight, after all, she could be used to get more information about Ouroboros. Did you do it because she was incompetent?'

'Good thinking, Millium,' Osborne looked oddly pleased. 'It was a hard decision, indeed. Clothilde could serve as an information source for a while. But in the end, it always pays off when your enemies' organization is run by incompetent fools. It'd be much more difficult to deal with Ouroboros were it run by someone who was actually competent. So after some deliberation, I decided to let Clothilde go and proceed putting her own organization's plans in peril just by the virtue of being a part of the team.'

Millium cheered up at his praise, if that was even possible for her already permanently overcheerful self. In fact, that might've looked scary.

'But according to rumors and game pre-release info, Vita is gone from Ouroboros!' Claire said, a little bit sad.

'True,' Osborne nodded. 'But do not be concerned. It's only natural that your smartest plans and setups don't play out when there's a company determined to make you lose in their next game.'

'Against all odds, might I add,' Lechter smirked. 'I mean, it's really hard to lose to a lousy and incompetent organization like Ouroboros without blatant cheating, like creator gods themselves being on your side.'

'But we're still going to lose...' Altina whispered to herself with sadness.

It was so rare of her to speak that everybody turned to her and stared. Strangely, she looked wistful rather than like an empty-eyed robot. The girl was undergoing therapy -- if her evening talks with Millium, of all people, could be called that way -- and it seemed to do her good. At least she started to express herself. Well, sometimes. Very rarely. Almost never.

'We will _not lose,_ ' Osborne announced firmly. 'Stop being so despondent. We're real people with real skills, and we're capable of thwarting the power of destiny itself.'

Altina didn't look convinced, she had too little personality yet to be moved by words or to experience deep feelings. Everyone else, though, felt a lot more confident and even greatly relieved. If their leader really thought they had a chance at playing and winning against something as grand as destiny, then surely they had.

'There's another thing to keep in mind,' Osborne continued. 'If Clothilde is gone, she most likely isn't gone forever, but is merely taking a vacation of shame. Just like that woman with knives who decided to go off and play a maid. I'm fairly sure that we're going to see Clothilde again eventually and she'll proceed ruining Ouroboros projects with her incompetence. Either that or she'll grow angry at them -- blaming them for her own short-comings, as defense reaction to cope with shame -- and help us ruin them consciously.'

'That sounds good,' Claire approved. 'But I'd rather she hid herself in some hellhole forever and died. She's a bad example to all women, so full of ridiculous feelings of inferiority that she wears suggestive clothing everywhere and apparently uses an orbal vaccuum cleaner to pump up her breasts every morning. Being famous and an opera icon, she spreads her own feelings of inadequacy like wildfire.'

'Look at it in a different way,' offered Lechter. 'She's demonstated how stupid and sloppy she is. Nobody's going to respect her now, let alone try to imitate her.'

'Ah, you don't understand,' Claire waved him off. 'On the contrary, everybody now is going to think that she still has worth, but that her worth is in being fanservice and not even remote a person. That's worse.'

Lechter stared at a random wall, puzzled at Claire's words. Naturally, it was a boring-looking military grey wall, like millions of similar walls in the same building and all throughout the games, but fortunately for Lechter, he was so deeply lost in thought by that point that he didn't have to undergo a torment of actually _seeing_  it.

'I don't understand...' whispered Altina to Millium.

'Neither do I!' Millium whispered back. 'Oh dammit, gramps has heard that!'

She didn't like being caught by Osborne admitting that she didn't understand something. Not outside their private talks, dammit!

'Let's get back to the goal of the meeting, shall we?' Osborne said, and feeling like he had a respectable reason to be tired of standing -- being 54 years old and all, -- he produced an armchair out of nowhere. 'The plan is not to wait passively for the inevitable infiltration attempt by Ouroboros. The plan is to infiltrate them first.'

That got everybody's attention. They had to fight with surprise and envy at seeing an armchair, though, which was such a rarity in military-looking buildings with their many spacious empty rooms and corridors. But their respect towards the chancellor was so great that nobody really felt too salty at having to stand while Osborne got himself seated.

Except Lechter. He non-chalantly sat down on the boring-looking grey floor and marveled why such a simple solution to sore legs had never occurred to him before. Claire, Millium and Altina shot him a discontent look or two, for they knew that they couldn't possibly behave as idiotically as him and get away with it. Only Lechter was already perceived as a fool and a dumbass by the chancellor, so he literally lost no respect from him when he behaved foolishly. Alas,  _their_ situation was different.

'We already have a headstart with this plan,' Osborne claimed. 'One of us has had infiltrated their organization long ago.'

To everyone's greatest shock, Osborne then revealed Lechter to be an anguis (a fan theory I read somewhere, which I believe to be correct for reasons of my own). Everybody looked at Lechter, chillin' on the floor and all... _An anguis_. Claire marveled out loud, somewhat testily, why the Ouroboros people employ someone like him as an anguis or how they can even trust him, knowing him to work for the Erebonian intelligence and for the chancellor specifically.

Without batting an eyelid, Lechter shared that they still trust him because they didn't really expect him to succeed in the first place. Like, Osborne still being alive and outsmarting them all? Well, it's alright that Lechter somehow failed to predict that and failed to put an end to the chancellor's plans. He's a fool, afer all, and he couldn't possibly ever outplay someone like Osborne. It was normal for Lechter to be bad at his anguis job, especially under these circumstances. Or rather that's what the Ouroboros people thought, going by the appearances and having forgotten that appearances tend to be deceptive.

At this time Rufus Albarea, who was getting really late, walked into the room. In all disarming honesty, he was supposed to be at this meeting from the start, but I completely forgot about his existence until now, so he ended up without any lines and had to come in late instead.

Osborne didn't bother to chastise the late leader of the Ironbloods (OMG that sounded ominous, I guess he was angry, after all). That surprised everyone, but they quickly figured out that if that was the case, then Rufus was busy with something important that had to be done right away, and for Osborne, of all people. Nice cop-out. *claps herself*

After being informed of what was being talked about and giving Lechter-sitting-on-the-floor a long look, Rufus shared:

'There's something else that puzzles me, not him alone... And that's McBurn.'

'Right! Right!' Millium joined in excitedly. 'They obviously throw him onto the battlefield after dragging him right out parties! That must be why he looks so bored and so reluctant to do his job for these people... Well, unless someone spanks him enough to hurt his pride.'

'And why is he kept?' Rufus pressed on, oblivious to the offensive fact that he considered McBurn nothing more than a pet. He had a thoughful look on his face.

'You think of them too deeply, they have such simple reasons,' Lechter shrugged. 'He's strong. They keep him just in case. Or at least I think he's strong? I've never seen him fight throughout all my years with Ouroboros, because he just CBA to do it. But Victor Arseid fought him once and later said he's strong.'

'Not strong enough to beat Victor Arseid,' Osborne said icily. 'All boast and no bite. Ouroboros lies a lot to promote the reputation of their people, but reality shows how toothless the Snake really is.'

'Maybe it's not them..?' Millium offered sheepishly. 'Some people are just naturally boastful all on their own. Like that Loewe enforcer. He once said that to have a hope to beat him one had to be enlightened. And where is he now?'

'It was no boast, he really was that strong,' Claire said with strange confidence. 'He was just unlucky and he had suffered a lot.'

'What?.. He was a poser,' Lechter said dismissively. He felt really annoyed. 'Suffered, ha... He was ugly as sin, by the way, in case you're interested.'

'No way!' Claire objected, her eyes slightly unfocused. 'They describe him as a noble albino with violet eyes...'

'And still ugly as sin,' Lechter said with all false theatrical conviction he could master. 'Do you know why he'd never had another girlfriend? Right, nobody would have him... That's why he 'suffered so much'.'

Claire looked like she actually considered his explanation. It sounded logical enough.

'He had a really fragile ego, too,' Lechter added to cement his win, feeling no shame for blatant lies. All was fair in love and war. 'Loewe pretended to be 'noble' in hope to impress someone... anyone! Well, like Bleublanc. But in _his_ case no one ever cared.'

Osborne could only roll his eyes at all this idiocy, but because he was a chancellor and knew how to carry himself, he could never afford to perform such a childhish gesture. Since Rufus came in, the meeting has devolved into a largely pointless chat between the Ironbloods on topics far from work, but Osborne didn't mind. It made him feel more like they were a family, not just a group of people who worked together. But don't allow yourself to ever get caught repeating that about him, for your own good.

'I see you've got your share of problems...' Rufus said slowly, eyeing an obviously jealous Lechter. 'But I find it hard to believe you can't solve them yourself. How old are you again, 24? Come to think of it, I could swear you were 24 or older in Zero no Kiseki, years ago... Maybe you secretly time-travel, with Campanella in tow, while all the rest of us age normally. But mysteries of your age aside, even if you've just hit 24 now -- which I doubt, for the record -- that's old enough to act like an adult.'

Lechter suddenly found something extremely interesting on the floor and stared at it. Oh, that grey nice floor! He'd never seen floor as grey as that before, there was no other floor quite like it.

Claire's face displayed some incredulity at the realization. She was no stereotypical dumb character, after all, but a real person, so naturally she understood all the implications of Rufus' words. And the reaction was quite telling, it looked like Lechter genuinely didn't know what to say after such a reveal and lost all his aplomb for a while. And Lechter had never lost his aplomb before. In fact, all that probably felt horrible for him, after all, it's not like Rufus ever asked if it was alright to put his secret on display like this. As for Claire, naturally she didn't blush from excitement like a dumb character would, she just felt really, really uncomfortable -- mostly because this had to be so painful for Lechter.

Rufus shot her a triumphant glance. She responded with an angry frown. He didn't have to be such an insensitive jerk, especially at this place and time. They were at an Iron & Blood meeting, of all events. Even if Lechter wanted to, he couldn't start saying anything meaningful on this matter here. All they could do for now is pretend that nothing happened.

Altina tugged at Millium and asked what it was all about now. Millium shrugged, puzzled just as much. She was prepared to loudly ask that question of others, until she happened to glance at Osborne and lost her speech. He was now sipping tea, which he produced hell knows outta where, while comfortably seated in an armchair. There was a strange expression written on his face. Strange for him or rather _on him_ , but Millium? She recognized it at once. That's how she felt around him when they were alone. Like he was really her grandpa...

She turned away, intuitively knowing that he wouldn't be thrilled to catch her staring. She knew that it was not because he wanted to appear indifferent, like a tsundere would, but because he believed that anyone who'd appear to be close to him would meet a tragic end quite soon. The chancellor had countless enemies. It saddened Millium that he wouldn't allow himself the luxury of relaxing with others even at this private secret venue, among this private secret group, all of whom he obviously thought of as more than just elite servants. Walls had ears and orbal technology companies could come up with new spy devices any day, Millium understood that. Well, at least she had those evening conversations with her gramps, disguised as therapy sessions as they were.

'Opinions?' Osborne said, mercifully breaking the uncomfortable silence in the room with a question, even though he didn't care for their opinions right now. 'On goals of Ouroboros. Which our anguis happens not to know. Not all that trusted, after all, now is he...'

Millium perked up. She used to give that a lot of thought.

'I know! I know!' She screamed. 'I know the truth: it isn't worth trying to decypher the mysterious ways of Ouroboros! The whole point of their ways is to look mysterious and there literally is no other point!'

Osborne found it funny and openly laughed, which was rare for him. Millium cavorted all around him, happy to see her gramps in good mood. Her rapid cavorting would annoy even a saint, but Osborne didn't mind, so it was obvious that he enjoyed it. Altina stared wistfully at her, jealous that she couldn't be just as spontaneous. She tried to imagine herself cavorting like that around Osborne and nearly vomited. No, that was not like Altina at all. She shouldn't be envious, after all.  
  
Rufus sighed and said:

'Jokes aside, Millium is very likely right and Ouroboros acts in a random way on purpose.'

'Jokes?' The girl asked incredulously. 'Hey I wasn't joking!'

'...with a single goal in mind: to confuse everyone else into thinking that they actually have a goal. That's what I can surmise after thinking over all the events that transpired since Ouroboros first made themselves known in Liberl.'

Millium rolled her eyes in exasperation. He's just repeated what she'd said, just in his own more pompous words... Roofus the Doofus!

This time it was Lechter who cracked up, and even though he had recently allowed himself a laugh, too, Osborne berated him, saying that the Ironblood conference is no comedy but serious business and now it’s over anyway. (Well, his tea was over).  
  
Then he brushed everyone off, telling them that they know what to do -- infiltrate Ouroboros -- and to stop taking up his space. But everyone knew he was just pretending to be a stereotypical tsundere at this point, after all, he cared for the Erebonian peasants. Millium knew even more. So they all smirked knowingly at him and left, one by one. Only Millium didn't smirk, she smiled like sunshine. Altina found courage to mimic her expression in hope of displaying a smile, but unbeknownst to her, it looked more like a wince from stomachache.


	3. Chapter 2. Double Infiltration

It took a month for Lechter to convince the Grandmaster of Ouroboros that they needed three new excellent enforcers to add to their roster. At first, the Grandmaster kept refusing, explaining that they got a quota of as many enforcers as tarot cards existed and that currently it was filled up to the brim, but Lechter (who gave up on trying to understand her logic long ago) was determined to have his way. Which called for skillful actions on the part of other Ironbloods.

So the other Ironbloods spent that month spying after various enforcers, until eventually three of those enforcers got lost forever \ booted from Ouroboros thanks to their efforts, which is exactly what they needed to free up three vacant spaces for themselves. It was all very exciting, like a mix of a spy and crime novel, and you enjoyed playing them to achieve those goals, but please allow all that to remain in the background of this fic.

* * *

  
To celebrate three new additions to their roster, all members of Ouroboros were commanded to gather at a secret location that normally I wouldn't care to think up, as it's secret anyway... But this one was different and worthy of mention. It happened to be an airship (apparently so that new recruits couldn't flee), which went by a modest name of The Glorious. That was indeed The Glorious, the one that used to fly the skies of Liberl but was never heard of again in next games for reasons beyond human and inhuman comprehension. It didn't go out of commission, however, here it was!

The Glorious belonged to Ouroboros personally -- and believe it or not, but to drive that point home, they even branded it in various places, like its few floors, with giant logos of a snake eating its own tail. The otherwise boring grey floor, the likes of which we've seen too many times to count or care, could almost earn a creativity point for that, if only the Snake symbols weren't so huge and gawdy. Thanks to those traits, instead of adorning the bleak image of the floor they stood out like a sore thumb. Their very existence was absurd: why would a secret organization ever want to come up with its own logo in the first place? And then brand it all over the place, in an ego-boosting show of how glorious their organization was, indeed! Glorious enough to own a ship called Glorious. Oh and did I mention that their symbol was huge in size, again? Apparently it was designed that way so that no detective who'd find it on any of their property would ever stand a chance of missing it.

Well, at least they didn't brand their enforcers with snake symbols, like a strange humanoid creature without a nose branded his minions in some parallel world. That said, judging by the The Glorious, they were probably dangerously close to start.

* * *

With three new recruits in tow, Lechter's small personal airship landed, and all of them stepped off into the landing port. Yes, The Glorious had its own airship landing port inside. As whoever designed it suffered from obsession with gigantism, The Glorious was probably the size of an average city overall. A Zemurian average city, though, which was probably more like a small village in size.

Having stepped off the airship and into a bigger one, Millium was curiously looking around. Many other small airships were landed beside theirs, but there was no commotion. On their personal landing platform, a giant snake symbol uglified the floor.

'Just don't look, just don't look...' Lechter muttered, and it wasn't clear if he was warning the others or wallowing in despair.

They walked through a few screens of the massive landing port until they finally reached a door. With relief, they walked in only to be faced with another giant snake logo on another grey floor. It was a devious plan on the part of Ouroboros to bring new recruits to The Glorious, indeed: here they could test their perseverence and their strength of will before they've even officially joined. Well now, at least, they were walking through many floors and corridors and not through the landing port. Which changed little, as the corridors were, naturally, gigantic and boring. And, naturally, completely empty of furniture or anything else. Only a random lone archaism could be seen here and there, and Claire caught herself wondering how they even knew not to attack them.

Claire and Altina and Lechter were just stoically walking through, bearing it all as they should, but Millium was so naturally curious that nothing like bad design could ever dampen her curiousity. She looked into all side rooms on the way, greatly slowing everyone down. But only to discover that side rooms were empty, save for a rare chest with goods. It soon became obvious to her that whoever designed Erebonian military bases and this Ouroboros airship was the same person. She told everyone and the Ironbloods even took note of it. Just in case. Perhaps they'd find that person and ask him about locations of other property of Ouroboros he'd helped design. If they could restrain themselves from killing him long enough.

'It can get worse, actually,' Lechter shared. 'This is an airship, so it's hard to get here and discover all these logos in the first place. But all those secret laboratories, churning out archaisms? Anyone who'd walk in would immediately know whose they were, thanks to the logos.'

'I know,' Claire sighed. After all, they've stolen at least one Ouroboros workshop for themselves in CS2 and she'd seen its design already. 'But I'm still trying to come to terms with it...'

Finally, they came to the top floor and faced another huge door. Lechter explained that beyond that door the main hall of The Glorious happened to be. Members of Ouroboros would gather over there for all important discussions and meetings.

'Welcome!' A very young person near the door, all dressed in pink, said with a suspicious unfading smile. 'You're the last ones to come. Except for The Lazy Demon --- ugh, excuse me, The Blazing Demon, -- but as usual we aren't counting him, for the sake of our own sanity.'

The person graciously threw open the door for them, but then stepped in and passed through first. Everyone felt vaguely puzzled, except Lechter, who'd long since been used to the trolling nature of Campanella. The boy just couldn't help it, so he trolled even in smallest, dumbest ways. Lechter supposed the kid just needed his daily share of playing games, after all, working for such a serious organization must've taken a toll on him. Even if he never aged and was hell knew how old.

The hall beyond the door was, naturally, devoid of furniture, so all Ouroboros members were gathered up standing. You'd think they'd put some furniture into the _main hall_ of The Glorious! But there still was a difference in architecture beween this hall and everything else on the airship, notably, a few pillars were erected in the hall, and they were already leaned on by some of the people who didn't want to be stuck standing straight all the time. The only other notable feature in the hall looked suspiciously like a Church organ (a piano type, not a corpse part). Why it was located here, of all places, was beyond anyone's comprehension, except for a select few who played Trails in the Sky: SC and knew about its hidden functions.

Our four protagonists were walking slowly towards the centre of the main hall, and everybody looked at 'new recruits' with some measure of incredulity. No matter how much Ouroboros hyped themselves up, they always found themselves shocked when someone decided to actually join their cause.

'Altina, as cute as ever!' Bleublanc said in delight, stepping into their way and blocking their passage. 'You've finally joined us. I've dreamt of it for a year and a half, all ever since the end of CS2.'

A few enforcers nearby shot him a dirty look but didn't bother to comment on his vaguely inappropriate behavior, age-wise. Just like with Campanella, everybody was simply too used to him. The case of getting used to Bleublanc was akin to surgeons getting used to cutting people up. A disgusting and stressing spectacle, but in a while you stopped reacting to it completely.

'Thanks,' Altina said, somewhat surprised and pleased that someone missed her.

Millium felt worried for her: Altina actually believed his words! She desperately needed a life experience upgrade, and Bleublanc just begged for a good kick in the face. That was Millium's take on the situation.

The entrance door to the hall loudly opened once more, and a few jaegers dragged in one very annoyed McBurn. A pained look on his face betrayed how much he didn't care to be here, especially for something as trivial as meeting new recruits. And judging by his clothes (which he never, absolutely never changed, but nobody knew that), he'd once again been going through a party when Ouroboros goons appeared and interrupted the fun. They had a knack for bad timing.

Claire frowned, feeling puzzled. If he really was that strong, why couldn't he just fry those hired jaegers up and continue partying? Something wasn't right in this picture. Either he was an utter fraud, falsely and shamelessly hyped up, or there was something or someone else who compelled or forced him to come, apart from the jaegers.

The answer came into the hall right after McBurn. The answer was a woman with long black hair and an Eastern look whom the Ironbloods had never seen before, but silence and the reverent air that descended onto the hall in the wake of her entrance made it clear who the boss here was. And as if that wasn't enough, Campanella decided to kneel in front of her as a greeting.

'Welcome,' She said coolly, addressing everyone at once. 'And now enjoy yourselves.'

It sounded strange, until the scenery has almost magically (or was that magic, indeed?) changed. Instead of a boring huge hall, they found themselves in a sunny glade, which greatly lightened up the mood. The pillars transformed into thick oak trees, and small cushions were strewn all throughout the grass around. Everybody hurried to the cushions and started taking their seats. Lechter looked at a cushion for a while and then decided to seat himself on the grass. Nothing wrong with cushions, but grass was soft and awesome, too. There was a lot to be said for being one with nature.

Altina felt really good here now, she just wished that strawberry -- the wild strawberry, the sweet one -- grew here, too. She loved it, as she'd recently discovered about herself after trying it out. And blackberry... Oh, blackberry! That was the best type of a wild berry in the world, hands down.

'He's _eating_  here,' Claire whispered incredulously, nodding at McBurn who was picking something from the grass and putting it into his mouth. That scene alerted Millium immediately, she looked around herself and picked a few blackberries. Altina gasped, in a rare show of emotion as deep as delight, and took a bunch of them from Millium's offered grasp.

'I can see you're going hungry these days,' the Grandmaster commented dryly.

McBurn promptly stopped enjoying wild berries and his face turned to its usual bored expression. It was painful just to look at him, and everybody wished she'd have just let him continue to quietly pick illusory berries. How much harm did that do anyway? Altina felt self-conscious, too, but Millium winked, moved to sit a little bit in front of her and successfully covered her blackberry eating process from the Grandmaster.

Campanella, standing by the Grandmaster with a worshipping look on his face, named new recruits to everyone and read out their bios for all to hear. It was unusual for Claire to see the leader of an organization let someone else speak, but she soon realized that rather than a temporary transfer of power, the general idea here was that the leader was too important to lay out such trifling details.

As it was their custom, after new recruits got introduced to everyone, the Grandmaster took out a deck of tarot cards from the folds of her kimono to predict their future successful deeds in Ouroboros. Lechter wasn't worried that she’d figure them out, since her predictions were frequently dead wrong anyway, so nobody took them seriously. Wait… You’re still wondering who the Grandmaster was? Well, naturally, that was Luciola, the so-called Bewitching Bell from Sky games. :-) Who'd else be so obsessed with tarot she'd name enforcers after tarot cards or actually practice divination! (No spoiler, just crack theory)  
  
After a new set of most likely wrong predictions that involved fighting vampires with salty stakes and Crow Armburst still being alive, everybody had a hearty laugh. Then a bottle with an unknown subtance was opened, Campanella launched an elaborate toast in honor of the Grandmaster and kept at it until a loud sound of running footsteps interrupted him, rudely and unexpectedly.  
  
Everybody looked at the uninvited guests in silence. Ex-Class VII, in the flesh! They stood close as a group, probably ready to fight if the situation went south quickly, and were looking over the gathering of the Ouroboros members seriously and intently.

For a moment, it was hard to tell what was going to happen. The dramatic moment was interrupted by Rean Schwarzer who suddenly called out:

'Claire! Millium! Altina!' 

The named ones just looked back at him, unsure how to proceed. The question 'How did they get here?' aside, Ex-Class VII faced quite a danger right now. Claire didn't believe they'd be allowed to walk away from here after witnessing so many of Ouroboros members. It was also quite embarrasing to be discovered as new members of Ouroboros, but such concerns paled in comparison with Ex-Class VII's own sad fate.

'Just what are you doing here...' Claire said slowly and somewhat sourly. 'Get back while you can!'

'I came for you,' Rean insisted. 'I don't believe you could just up and join them. It's not like you. And it's not like _you_.'

He glanced at Millium, who was currently quite speechless. Well, at least nobody was attacking anyone yet, the situation hadn't gone out of control.

'Stupid,' Altina uttered, most likely referencing Rean's decision to come here.

Rean's?.. Now wait a second, why only Rean's, when everybody else was here, too? Yes, indeed, everyone else of Ex-Class VII was present, thank you very much, and they were even displaying some reactions to the situation of their own, but just like in the games, nobody gave a damn about their existence. It was all about Rean. He alone would speak. Him alone others would address, even when they should've addressed Class VII as a whole. For him alone others would be concerned. His opinion alone would matter. He had the biggest ego in the universe -- or rather, whoever wrote him did.

Some enforcers turned away to hide embarrassing tearful expressions that appeared on their faces. Witnessing horrible shadowlike existence of these people was unbearable. They weren't like people, they were like ghosts. Even McBurn looked upset for a change.

'Don't make this mistake, you three!' Rean continued with a great deal of determination. 'Claire, I could never dare tell you, but now I have no choice so I have all the courage I need: I've always had feelings for you...'

Claire's face took on an expression of bewilderment. Feelings? She didn't care for his feelings, thank you very much. It was kind of sad that the guy would end up beaten up and chained up in some room on The Glorious, but she found him so annoying now that she didn't mind his sad fate as much as she probably should. Her history with that stupid crush on him was just too much for her to look past and ever see him in an unbiased fashion. She resented him now. The memories were too unpleasant.

'Hey Lechter, are you going to say something or not?' Millium winked.

After all, he and Claire had a few dates last month. That she knew of.

'Nah, I'm way too interested to hear what _Claire_ has to say of this...'

'Pff! Of course, I don't care. Oh that was rude, I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're saying, Rean. You must be confused. Get away from here if you can. As for me, I know what I'm doing and why I'm here and nobody will change my mind.'

Suddenly Jusis stepped out (of Rean's metaphorical massive shadow) and said:

'Rean aside, will _you_ be leaving with me?' He glanced furtively at Millium. 'Or will you just stand there looking like a fool all day, like always?'

Millium stared at Jusis like he'd sprouted a second head. Not just because he'd shown some care behind his usual tsun facade, but because she had no idea that it was possible to interrupt Rean and take the spotlight. Something was fishy about that.

'Screw you!' She giggled delightedly, happy to hurt him back for all his insults in one go. 'I'm staying here with my family, the Ir... the Ouroboros! Especially with my sis Altina, I'd never desert her for you.'

She automatically searched for Bleublanc with her eyes, just out of habit, as he was the biggest danger to Altina in all Ouroboros. But he was nowhere to be seen among the enforcers.

'Meow, shouldn't you have come to sensible conclusions by now?' Celine the Cat spoke. As it turned out, all this time she was seated in the grass, looking as vexed as ever. 'Altina the Empty, we've had a talk about it, did it really go over your head? Staying with Duke Cayenne didn't help you discover your true potential. Staying with Ouroboros won't, either. Let me take you where you belong to become a witch like you're meant to.'

Claire and Millium gave Altina an incredulous look each. They had no idea that she had what it took to become a witch. Millium felt slightly upset that Altina never cared to share that with her, after all, she spent so much time lately trying to help her find her calling.

'I refuse,' Altina uttered. 'You're a cat, although you talk. I am Altina, although I have unclear personality, for now.'

That was the most she'd ever spoken in one go, which was impressive. And after having said all that, it dawned on her that this was really how she'd felt all along. She didn't need to become anyone or the opposite of anyone. She already was herself from the start.

'Let's say they've earned a passing grade,' the Grandmaster said, nodding to herself.

A round of polite congratulatory applause suddenly erupted from the audience. It came from the enforcers around.

Celine the cat evaporated into thin air, along with Jusis and the rest of Ex-Class VII. Rean remained solid a little while longer, as if insisting even now that he's the only one who matters, and then morphed back into Bleublanc.

'What?' Claire was aghast. ' _You were testing us_...'

'I hope you've never thought we'd throw this gathering just to welcome you,' Luciola said. 'Too much honor.'

Now Claire felt dumb, all of this should've been obvious from the start. Even Rean's manner of speaking was different, he didn't stumble and mumble, like before, but she just assumed he'd changed after all this time. Luciola lulled them into this illusion of a sunny glade and after a powerful illusion like that even the sudden appearance of Ex-Clasas VII made some kind of twisted sense. And those blackberries, Altina's favorite? Naturally, those didn't appear all over the glade just by accident. Luciola had somehow managed to have seen through and appeal to their deepest desires, every step of the way. Gosh, she even knew about Celine's witchy proposition to Altina none of the Ironbloods knew about. Claire felt terrified of the Grandmaster for the first time. How much did she know? Was that tarot reading just to lull them into slightly disrespecting her and then take them by surprise? And what could this have ended with, had they shown some hesitation or regrets about joining Ouroboros?..

She turned to tell Lechter something not quite polite, but did not, somehow it didn't make much sense to be angry at him. He just shrugged at her apologetically (only he could manage that, try it some time), knowing what was going through her mind. It was hard to blame him of not giving them a fair warning: after all, to fool someone like this Grandmaster they had to be utterly convincing, and none of them had ever taken acting lessons.

'What a tearful and pitifully truthful spectacle of Class VII that was, great master,' Campanella sighed in admiration so deeply, as if he was in love. 'I felt much pity for all of them shadow-like puppets... And Bleublanc's Rean was so convincingly and intolerably self-obsessed.'

'That's coz he and Bleublanc are the same!' Millium declared. 'No need for a big theatrical talent to be yourself.'

'You wound me,' Bleublanc dramatically put his hand to his heart. 'May I self-obsess, I do that quitely, without stifling the lives and personalities of others... Well, mostly.'

Millium turned away, pointedly ignoring the blabbering idiot. Altina looked at him with interest, though.

'I'm leaving,' McBurn announced, with something sounding vaguely like happiness to his voice. 'It's finally over, right? Gah, thank Aidios...'

He quickly marched towards the door, looking relieved. That's right, the illusion of the glade was gone by that point.

Other enforcers and anguises started walking towards the door, as well.

'What the hell?!' McBurn's voice suddenly resounded. 'Ugh, don't tell me there's actual work to be done...'

Everybody turned to look at him, surprised to hear about work. He'd stopped near the exit from the main hall, with the door thrown widely open in front of him... and with very confused-looking Rean Schwarzer in the door frame.


	4. Chapter 3. Dirty Laundry Unveiled

**CHAPTER 3. DIRTY LAUNDRY UNVEILED**

It was hard to say who was shocked more: McBurn or Rean…

‘Are you going to fight me?’ Rean asked, staring at him wide-eyed. Then he focused his gaze on all the people behind him and shuddered, realizing what kind of a lion’s den he’d walked into.

‘Why would I bother fighting?..’ McBurn looked at Rean like he was insane.

Then he looked back at the Grandmaster just to be sure. Maybe she did want for him to fight. Luciola shook her head in a negative way. McBurn relaxed.

Rean suppressed a great sigh of relief and walked in sheepishly.

Claire shot Lechter a look, but Lechter looked utterly confused, just like everyone else. And they didn't look confused before, so she could only conclude that this time Rean Schwarzer was real. Judging by how much more sheepish (and not at all like Bleublanc) he sounded, it was probably the original specimen, indeed. That actually was quite bad. Really bad. For him. What was he even thinking coming here alone like this?

‘I hoped to find you’, Rean mumbled, apparently addressing Ouroboros in its entirety, ‘but Celine the Cat laughed at me for months, and then she told me that in accord with Murphy’s Law I can only find you if I stop searching. So I stopped and aimlessly wandered the lands. Then I gave up on the lands and told Valimar to aimlessly fly us around through the skies. And wow that really worked…’

Nobody in Ouroboros knew who Murphy was, but they didn’t want to ask and reveal their ignorance, so they kept silent. They knew of Celine the Cat, though, and decided that Murphy was probably one of those witches from their Hexen clan. What a strange and potent magic she gave to Rean! Thanks to it, Valimar managed to accidentally bump right into their airship, hidden behind advanced cloaking techniques, now that was magic on par with the Sept-Terrions...

Slowly, the hall morphed back into a sunny glade. Everyone looked at Luciola for a moment in surprise, then shrugged and took back to their cushions. Apparently the show was going to go on. McBurn moaned loudly, but was completely ignored, as always.

The happiest person in this new iteration of a glade happened to be Campanella. Finally, someone with worse clothes than him showed up! As usual, Rean was wearing a school uniform everywhere, he never realized how stupid that was. Of course, Campanella’s own pink suit could compete with Rean's garb in stupidity any day, but at least he actually _was_ The Jester and so his clothing made some sense. Rean had finished Thors, yet apparently wandered the world for past months wearing a school robe. He just couldn't let go of Thors, he couldn't.

Experiencing this pleasant bout of gloating happiness, Campanella graciously offered Rean to sit down and share a toast.

Rean sat down and suddenly noticed Lechter, Claire, Millium and Altina present among the Ouroboros members. He stared at them, unable to conceal his strong shock (and having no reason to do that anyway).

‘ _You_ I can sort of understand,’ he addressed Lechter. ‘But you guys… I mean, girls?’

To distract everyone from his blatant staring (after all, it was supposed to be a secret that the four were the Ironbloods, and he could blurt it out any minute), Lechter loudly demanded to know why Rean came and what he wanted.

That’s when Rean suddenly remembered that indeed he wanted something from Ouroboros. Cursing his forgetfulness, he stood up and claimed in a determined voice, suddenly becoming more and more like his old emo self: ‘I want to join you, guys!’

Everyone else nearly fell off their cushions. From laughter.

Rean looked more confused than ever.

‘You’re all acting strange,’ he commented. ‘Especially you.’

The latter was directed at McBurn, and he lifted an eyebrow as a hint for Rean to elaborate, coz he just CBA to actually open his mouth and verbalize the question.

‘I was told that you’d be searching for me,’ Rean elaborated, going into the CS3 pre-release info details. ‘And that you’d be obsessed with the idea to fight me.’

‘Bah, what fun could that possibly be,’ McBurn shrugged. ‘I’d swat you in one go like a fly, you and your toy robot.’

‘Not if creator gods were on my side,’ Rean found courage to say. ‘And they are, we all know that. You do. Deep inside, you do.’

‘What?’ McBurn frowned. ‘Come at me, you big-mouthed cheater…’

Luciola waved at him dismissively, and McBurn stepped back, looking a little miffed. Everybody else felt deeply disappointed, like never before in their whole lives. They were so hopeful to finally see McBurn in a fight, even if it’d be the quickest fight in the world! Apparently, Luciola was too curious about Rean Schwarzer's motives to join Ouroboros, though. His claim was crazy comical, indeed. And she'd never get to know the details if he died prematurely.

'So why am I getting rejected?' Rean asked sternly. 'Do you have anything to say for yourselves?'

Claire worriedly thought that he didn't yet realize what a dangerous situation he was in. Or he realized it and forgot about it. Human psyche would sometimes employ extraordinary self-defense mechanisms.

Campanella, continuing to be happy and helpful to someone worse off than himself, deigned to explain to Rean that he was unworthy of joining their ranks. He was just an average Joe, after all, freshly out of school, and his combat prowess was by far inferior to theirs, and they only accepted the best to Ouroboros. Rean flinched. Campanella's words deeply hurt his sore spot: self-esteem.

But Campanella had been smiling while talking, just like he always did, and he tended to be sadistic, so Rean chose to hang on to hope that his explanation was merely an expression of his theatrical sadism at work and the Ouroboros members laughed at his offer to join them for other reasons. Very mysteryious reasons, after all, Ouroboros always tended to be mysterious. Telling himself that and still believing in the best, he decided to further elaborate on his reasons to join Ouroboros.

According to him, he really wanted to fight his dad, and that was all there was to it. He’d fight him with _them_ , of all criminals, if that's what it took! Because nobody else wanted to...

After another bout of laughter, even McBurn himself opened his mouth to say:

'Did it ever occur to you that he wasn't a villain? Not that I care one way or another, I'm just using logic... If nobody else wants to fight him, then maybe they all like him?'

Rean huffed and thought that he'd never heard anything as irrational before. Apparently McBurn knew how to crack a good joke and that's what he did just now -- words like those couldn't be meant seriously, after all, -- but Rean was in no mood to laugh.

'I know what your problem is, you lot,' he suddenly frowned, shaking his head. 'It's _The Darkness_ , right? I'm supposed to have some 'darkness' to me to be eligible for joining. Well I do, and Osborne is the one to blame: he deserted his own son, kicked him out into the snowy woods and left... I've always felt that I'm worthless after that, since even my own parent abandoned me.'

'How is that dark?' Bleublanc asked, thoughtful. 'And not just pitiful? Let go of your childhood already, young man...'

'If that's not enough, I turn into an ogre sometimes!' Rean claimed, belligerently. 'And I don't know how, but I just know it's  _his_ fault. He was probably conducting some experiments on his own son, then something went wrong, and I was kicked out like a puppy who was no longer needed. '

'An ogre...' Bleublanc muttered. 'An ogre, how curious... Who did you say your mother was?..'

'Who _cares_ who she was,' Rean shrugged with a hint of derision. 'Don't you know that mothers are irrelevant in video games? And to me personally, unless she was someone important in society. But she probably wasn't, so she's never going to receive a mention in the games, for all _I_ care.'

Lechter felt highly entertained by that point, Rean was golden comedy today! Lechter had known for a long time that Rean Schwarzer was taking everything about his image extremely seriously. But he'd rarely seen his righteous mask drop like this (under the stress of getting rejected, no doubt) and reveal his true colors so vividly. It was enlightening to see the magnitude of lies a human ego could tell itself: a boy who cried to everyone how universally unworthy and undeserving he was, was actually projecting his own derision towards others... on others. If that made sense. Lechter studied psychology under Osborne, so it made sense to him.

Taking matters into his own hands for a change, Lechter reminded Rean about something: the day when Osborne told Rean that he was his father was the First of April. The chancellor just happened to be in good mood after all his plans worked out so well, Lechter said, and when that old man with a serious face joked he looked dead serious! Lechter admitted that he'd been fooled more than once himself by the chancellor. He and a couple of neighboring nations who were careless enough to want to negotiate with the Erebonian Empire on April Fools' Day. They even had wars started over that. Ah, that old memory that featured Osborne? He did indeed find a child in the snow, but it wasn’t his, so it was natural he gave it away to another family to raise.

Rean paled like a ghost upon the news. Everyone bated their breaths, anticipating more drama to come. They started taking bets and the majority ended up betting that emo-Rean would perk up and end up happy at the end of CS3. But suddenly he cried like a child, surprising everybody and making a lot of them lose their money.

‘I finally thought I became significant and important...’ he said between sobs. ‘If not on my own merits, then at least by being a son of someone as well-respected and famous as _him_ …’

Rean couldn’t bear his obsession with himself anymore. Even Ouroboros members felt sorry for him.

‘I’ll help you’, the Grandmaster said, taking out her trusty tarot deck. In a few minutes she predicted that Rean was going to become a drunk and live the rest of his life in a dirty gutter.

‘Sorry,’ she said. 'That didn't work out so well.'

Rean bawled. Running out of the main hall and hopping onto Valimar, he flew away to the very first tavern he saw by the road, drowned his sorrow in a drink and became a worthless drunk for the rest of his days.

* * *

Our four protagonists were looking down from the deck of The Glorious, watching Valimar leave. The new recruits were allowed to stay and ride the airship a little longer, as they’d never seen it fly before.

It opened to an amazing view below, with tiny tiny dots of houses and clouds close above, so close you’d almost touch them if you just stretched your hand out.

It was a mystery how our protagonists survived being in the open on the deck on The Glorious. After all, human beings generally couldn’t. Mountaneers referred to high altitudes like this as ‘death zone’ for a reason. There wasn’t enough oxygen at high altitudes to sustain human life, so normal human beings would soon experience brain damage and, if left to their own devices, death. Apparently Zemurians weren’t normal human beings and didn’t need hermeutically sealed spaces or oxygen tanks and could just stand on decks of airships forever.

But the Ironbloods weren’t surviving alone on the deck of The Glorious. Bleublanc was shamelessly hanging around and was currently telling everybody about his travels, whether they wanted to hear about them or not. Altina listened with interest. Millium suspected the worst of his intentions and resolved to watch him like a hawk.

The other three people on the deck happened to be the Grandmaster who was busy berating ashamed Campanella for something, and McBurn who stood close by with a zoned-out expression, apparently waiting for his turn.

Finally, Campanella got told off and walked off into the Ironbloods’ general direction. The Grandmaster promptly switched to berating McBurn.

‘She absolutely destroyed me!’ Campanella complained, albeit with a hint of admiration to his voice. ‘As if I’m the one at fault that toy robot Valimar managed to land here… Yeah, I know that it was a security breach, but she could take it out on the jaegers instead.’

‘Wow you’re whiny!’ Millium whistled. ‘Shame on you! The right hand of the Grandmaster, by the looks of it, and crying like an infant… Be a strong girl, alright?’

‘Campy is a boy,’ Lechter said automatically.

He was so used to clearing that up that it was quite automatic of him to do so. It didn’t help Campanella that he had such a name. It didn’t help that he had a voice of a young girl and wore a pink suit, either. And it emphatically didn’t help that he was caught wearing make-up at least once throughout the games.

‘Really?’ Millium stepped closer to Campanella and leaned in to study his face. ‘You’re trolling, right? Looks like a girl to me…’

‘Well, I heard he wore a dress once,’ Lechter said non-chalantly. ‘So it’s hard to be completely sure.’

‘I’d like to see that,’ Millium muttered.

‘Girls these days…’ Bleublanc shook his head in mock horror.

‘What?! You’re saying it like I’m some kind of a pervert, just like you!’ Millium shot him an angry look. ‘Stop judging people by yourself, masked freak! I just think he’d look hilarious in a dress, especially with some badly applied make-up and an ugly hairwig and innacurately smeared on lipstick, you know?’

She laughed out loud, imagining that picture.

‘At this rate beware, I might actually dress up for you,’ Campanella slightly bowed. ‘The Jester exists to entertain.’

‘Nah, don’t put yourself down like that,’ Millium waved him off. ‘Maybe that’s all they see in you in Ouroboros, but I am sure you’re worth more than that.’

Campanella looked at her with a mixed expression. It was a little bit of incredulity, a little bit of doubt, and a little bit of gratitude.

‘What?! You’re _grateful_?!’ Millium caught on to that. ‘Wow they really mistreat you here… That’s just horrible.’

Campanella opened his mouth -- most likely to object -- but couldn’t really come up with anything to object with, so he closed it. Then he opened it again, but changed his mind again. He looked confused somehow and slightly shaken.

Claire frowned. Lechter felt concerned, too. Maybe it was their mistake to involve Millium in this infiltration scheme. She was already affecting people here in odd ways and she was probably too young and inexperienced to think of them as enemies for long. No matter what Campanella’s deal was, he was the most loyal servant of the Grandmaster and one of their worst enemies. Everyone and his dog in this rotten world had been mistreated by someone, not just him, so that shouldn't make him special!

'This is for your own sake, dimwit!' The Grandmaster screamed so loudly at McBurn that everybody and their toy robot heard. 'Not a single mira more! Stop being irresposible and get a job if you want to eat something next month! How are you going to live once I'm gone and there's noone left to take care of you?' 

'She sounds like she cares for him,' Millium said. 'In her own way. But not for you...'

Campanella looked like he wanted to say something again, but didn't.

'Look!' he called out instead, trying to distract Millium from the sore topic. 'Just would you look at them!'

Millium turned in the direction he was pointing at and was rewarded by a scene of Bleublanc and Altina chatting, all alone, at a distance. Apparently he'd managed to walk her off so they'd have more privacy. Millium felt positively murderous.

* * *

'What a nag,' McBurn winced once the Grandmaster was gone. 'Why was I born to that woman, of all of them?' 

The Ironbloods exchanged glances. They thought that McBurn was just a comical character with weirdo traits, but all in good fun, yet his life turned out to be so tragic. Or at least it was going to be tragic, once he was left alone in this harsh world to cope for himself, that much was certain.

'I hate my life,' McBurn shared so candidly that everyone wondered who of the two was a real emo -- him or Rean. 'And I hate all women. They always want something from you. Get a job, grow up, eat something next month...'

Bleublanc, who received a black eye from Millium just a minute ago, rolled his eyes. But he did it in vain: nobody noticed it behind his hand, meant to hide the unseemly new facial feature from Altina.

Suddenly McBurn stepped up to the abovementioned girl, looking at her in a sort of cautious wonder. He didn't have a chance to observe her this closely before. Up close, the new recruit was so... so apathetic! She really looked quite listless and empty, that girl. Could it be that he's finally met his match? A girl who'd never try to force him out of his lifestyle? A girl who wouldn't give a damn?! His eyes shone with newfound hope...

'Would you want to go to a casino with me?' he asked, bating his breath.

'You're too old, fool!' Millium said Jusis-style, before Altina could reply anything. 'What is it with my sis and old guys? I know she had to dress like a child prostitute, but that was long ago. The joke's getting old by now.'

McBurn suddenly realized that he'd seen Altina before, indeed, and that was on the Noble Alliance's airship during the events of CS2. She used to dress like she was fanservice, so he hadn't taken her seriously and never paid attention.

'I'm not old,' McBurn said. 'She just never grows, a loli like you. How is that _my_ fault and _me_ being too old? I remember her now, she looked the same age on that airship.'

Millium looked stressed. She suddenly realized that she'd never grown, indeed. A loli? Was she destined to be a child forever? The thought filled her with terror. Would she never be taken seriously, like an adult, always judged by her childish looks? Would she never date anyone, let alone have a family?

'You get used to it,' Campanella said, with a hint of real compassion to his voice. 'I won't lie to you that it's nice, but you get used to it.'

Millium was surprised to learn that he was a never-growing loli, too. A male loli, now that was quite rare. She felt a sort of bond forming between them suddenly, and opened her mouth to say something about it when...

'We need to go and fast!' Lechter claimed, grabbing both Millium and Altina. 'Look just how late it is...'

Everything was going wrong. Everyone here was getting along too well.


	5. Chapter 4. The Prince of Songs & Roses

**CHAPTER 4.  THE PRINCE OF SONGS & ROSES**

 

After learning what happened and how shameful Rean’s response to it was, his friends deserted him for good with great relief. Naturally, they always wanted to desert him, but before this time, something always stopped them, no matter how hard they tried. Even if they left they'd find themselves coming back to Rean. They knew that this wasn’t alright, they just didn’t know how to deal with it. They couldn’t talk about this horrible situation amongst themselves, as whenever they tried, they ended up praising Rean to each other instead. It was literally impossible for them to talk about any other topic but him. And you wondered why all of them ran away so happily from him at the end of CS2... It was literally the first time a miracle happened and creator gods allowed them to stop being scenery and start being their own people! Naturally, they were forced to cry about it, but unlike what it might’ve looked like, those were tears of happiness.

Strangely, there was one person who stood by Rean. For a while. No, not the fake love interest that existed for fanservice purposes (and, I assure you, hated it with great passion!), but the only person in the games whom Rean had ever hugged on his own accord… And that was Machias!

We’ll never know what exactly Machias thought of Rean’s feelings, but he did try to help him by putting him through anti-alcoholic and anti-narcissistic therapy. Sadly, all of that failed, and it didn’t help that Machias refused to marry Rean in the process, either. Finally, after learning that Rean disassembled and sold, piece by piece, his toy robot Valimar to get more alcohol money, Machias couldn’t take it anymore and took off. He was determined to track down Valimar’s pieces and put the poor toy robot back together…

…so for starters, he joined the rest of ex-Class VII who by that time hooked up with Prince Olivert. Indeed, Olivert has finally just started assembling a new ‘Third Front’ for the coming war. What war? An all-out war between Ouroboros and Osborne, of course, that was what they all joined Olivert for. But after they've joined, they were never seen or heard from again, since they never got enough independent characterization thanks to Rean’s existence and ended up too boring to write about. But supposedly they were helping Olivert for the rest of CS3 with small jobs, like vacuum cleaning, b/c who in their right mind would allow barely trained kids on the frontlines when you’ve got all those bracers and pros invited to Erebonia from previous games? :-)

* * *

‘That really is Luci... Unbelievable.’

Olivert heard those words from the mouth of Sherazard Harvey, a Liberlian bracer who finally came to Erebonia on his invitation, despite all previous years of stalling. She was looking at a photograph of Luciola that Olivert gave her with his normal goofy expression earlier. It happened to be one of photographs which Rean Schwarzer took with his secret orbal mini-camera when he happened to board The Glorious by accident.

Apparently Rean was more resourceful than everybody around gave him credit for and knew how to plan ahead. For once he’d drunk all his savings away and needed to raise money for more alcohol, he showed up on the doorstep of the Imperial Palace attempting to sell the secret photographs of Ouroboros members to the Royal Family, of all people. Can you imagine his pricing? That bunch of photographs cost Olivert an arm and a leg! But it was worth it, for after hearing that Luciola was spotted among members of Ouroboros, none other than Sherazard, a woman of his dreams, came to Erebonia to see the photographs with her own eyes.

‘I don’t know if I should be glad,’ Shera said. ‘Or bitter that she’s still with Ouroboros… But at least Luci is alive! I knew it. Back then I called it. I said she couldn’t die like that, she’d teleport herself away at the very last moment… and I was right.’

Tears stood in her eyes and it was a rare sight to see Shera like this.

‘I’m glad for you,’ Olivert offered, desperately looking for something nice to say, so that Shera would start liking him more.

‘For me? This has nothing to do with me,’ Shera shook her head. ‘It’s all about Luci.’

Mueller Vander, an unwilling witness to this scene and an unfortunate character whom the games have always forced to hang around Olivert, shook his head, too. In his opinion, Olivert kept shooting himself in the leg with Shera. At all times! She’d never take him seriously, not even if he knelt in front of her with a serenade and gave her a garden of roses as a present. In fact, she’d probably take him even less seriously after that. Mueller could only sigh and think to himself that all of that was Olivert’s own fault. If he wasn’t mindlessly flirting left and right, he’d have a decent chance of Shera actually believing him when he finally got serious! But as things stood, she was oblivious to his affections completely, dismissing them as yet another example of his endless pretenses.

‘What was she like?’ Mueller dared to ask, since it clearly didn't occur to Olivert to do that.

Shera shot him a grateful look. She clearly wanted to talk about Luciola a little.

‘She was… somewhat of a tsundere, I guess,’ she said uncertainly. She couldn’t remember her past clearly for some reason, maybe because the games never dwelled on it much. ‘Well, she was a good tarot card reader, that’s why our caravan had her on board. She always knew which destiny to read.’

‘What do you mean?’ Olivert felt perplexed. ‘Do we have multiple destinies?’

‘Oh no, she just knew how to read the cards to the pleasure of every client,’ Shera smiled. ‘Don’t tell me you _believe_ that tarot reading is divination… Of course it’s random. But she chose what to say carefully and clients always left happy.’

‘But that means she was nothing but a lowly charlatan,’ Olivert said.

Mueller facepalmed. It wasn’t smart to start insulting that woman, she obviously meant something to Shera. Olivert was such a stereotypically dumb blonde that sometimes it was unbearable.

‘She was a liar at her job,’ Shera admitted. ‘But that’s because she knew everything, just by looking at them. Luci could read hearts... Haha, it was always impossible to fool her! No matter what, she’d know your game.’

‘Alright, let’s celebrate your visit to the palace!’ Olivert screamed tactlessly, interrupting Shera’s reminiscing process. ‘We’ve got great wine in the cellars…’

He knew that Shera was into drinking and he wanted to please her. In fact, she happened to be the biggest drinker in all Zemuria, not even Sara Valenstein could ever hope to compete, not in her wildest dreams. Shera would outdrink all Zemurian population and be the last one standing.

‘Good idea,’ Shera’s eyes shone with delight. ‘How about a drinking contest? Just like the old times.’

Olivert paled. From prior experience, he knew he had no chance of winning. But he couldn’t refuse Shera, now could he?

‘Alright…’ He mumbled, with the face of someone headed to his execution. ‘Let’s make a trip to the cellars then…’

After watching them leave, Mueller walked all the way to the front of the castle and stood at the reception desk himself. If anyone came for the prince, he’d have to report to that he's busy and send them away. Far, far away. Otherwise they might accidentally see a drunk prince, possibly (or even inevitably) sprawled on the floor after the drinking contest, and that would be bad for his princely image. As usual, Mueller had to be the one to cover for him. He liked Shera, but in his opinion she was a bad influence on Olivert (which was an achievement in itself, taking into account how bad he already was).

Unbeknownst to Mueller, Shera happened to be an accurate representation of medieval everyday life, but he wouldn’t know this, because everyone else in Zemuria was not. In medieval times, tea (let alone coffee) remained unknown to a European man for a long time, yet everybody was a pretty heavy drinker, especially in summers. Naturally, they drank beer, not water. It was a normal practice for an employer to offer his workers in the field enough beer to last them through the day. Apparently Zemuria got its hands on tea earlier, most likely from Calvard, but Shera was present in the games as a relic of old times.

* * *

As far as the ‘war’ between Ouroboros and Osborne was concerned, Olivert had a plan. In the beginning, he did absolutely nothing, instead choosing to wait till the other two sides –- Ouroboros and Osborne –- weaken and nearly destroy each other. The tactics of doing nothing happened to be one of his rare smart ideas, and everyone admired it profusely and complimented him for it. But actually it wasn’t even his, it was secretly a suggestion from good old Mueller that he stole and passed off as his own to look smart. Mueller didn't mind, his sole purpose in life was to babysit Olivert, after all, and if his ideas helped him look good, then it was fine.

But time went by much quicker than Olivert had anticipated and before he -– and everybody else from previous games who gathered at his palace -- could finally join in with the war efforts, Ouroboros got destroyed. Bloodlessly and from within, which surprised Olivert a lot, since what he expected was a massacre all across the continent. Apparently the so-called Ironbloods, a secret band of Osborne’s fanatic followers, managed to infiltrate and drive Ouroboros apart by making them question the philosophy of their establishment. Which happened to be, to Olivert’s utter bemusement, the philosophy of freedom.

* * *

***cutscene from the court***

  
‘So you helped start a civil war in Erebonia to pursue freedom?’ the Judge asked, exasperated.

The Judge happened to be called Arios MacLaine, a famous bracer from Crossbell. There was no official judge yet for the International Court of Zemuria -- that said, there was no International Court of Zemuria until today’s morning, either -- so he got elected with a quick vote across the national governments to serve as the first judge.

‘Yes, Your Honor!’ Campanella squeaked from his seat. He didn’t mean to squeak, but that was the only voice that the games gave him. ‘But we were all fooled...’

‘Explain yourself. I give you five minutes.’

Everybody in the courtroom thought that it was very strange of a Judge to impose a time limit on something as important as testimony in court. But they had only themselves to blame for this. Why did they choose a bracer, not a lawyer, as a judge in the first place? Ah, right, the only lawyer in Crossbell was not available anymore. And since he apparently was the only lawyer that ever existed in Zemuria, there was no choice but to assign someone with no experience in law as a judge.

‘Grandmaster, please explain it to them clearly!’ Campy half-whined and half-demanded. ‘Why are you so silent now? You used to be so eloquent with us when you fooled us into following that ridiculous bullshit idea of freedom…’

‘You’re  _oh so eloquent_ , too, but not about what you need to be,’ Luciola intoned, bored. They’ve taken away her tarot deck and there was not much meaning to her life without it. ‘It’s simple. People imagine they have freedom and live freely, but everything in their lives was determined beforehand. They follow their instincts and emotions and thoughts, unaware that all of those rise on their own, according to the principle of cause and effect. They’ve managed to realize that their childhood traumas determine their personalities, but the whole truth is that each new emotion and each new thought was determined by the ones preceding them and by the circumstances that were random, not controllable. There’s no free will in anyone’s life. Although there is a semblance of it in mine.’

Arios pinched himself under the table, so that nobody would see such a disgraceful action from a judge. He did not expect his first court hearing to take a meditative philosophical turn. 

‘So what _is_ it that makes your life different?’ he asked, collecting himself. ‘And worthy of causing wars for it to be different, might I add…’

‘I do not act according to my wishes,’ Luciola said with pride. ‘Instead of doing what my emotions and thoughts tell me, I use my tarot deck -- a tool to produce random unbiased decisions, -- to tell me what to do. This is how I am free from my predetermined self.’

Silence fell in the courtroom for a long time.

‘And how is that related to the terrorist actions of Ouroboros?’ Arios finally asked. ‘Ah, let me guess, the cards told you to do that. All of that.’

‘Yes... Although in very broad strokes,’ Luciola said. ‘I left the details to my followers’ discretion. Of course, I used my cards to choose my followers, as well. Even when my own heart demanded that I fire that traitorous Lechter. Even when I knew it was best to thwart his idea to bring in those three new recruits…  or rather three more traitors. Yet my cards told me to keep them all on board. How ironical is it that my cards told me to accept new recruits who’re responsible for toppling my organization? The irony, haha... The irony was splendid.’

‘You sound like that doesn’t really bother you?’ Arios lifted a brow, a puzzled look on his face.

‘Of course not. I’ve lived a free life, that’s all that matters. The fall of Ouroboros was neither initiated nor prevented by me. I can say with certainty that it was beautifully random.’

More silence fell. Finally Campanella stood up and waved for attention.

‘Can all of you see what I mean now?’ He addressed everyone in the courtroom. ‘She brainwashed all of us into thinking like this. Instead of accepting ourselves as creatures of Aidios, we sought to subvert her rule of cause and effect, interrupt determinism of our lives and become the masters of ourselves.'

'Heretics!' A guy with spiky green hair from the farthest row cried out. He was dressed as a monk. 'All heretics must be destroyed...'

Campanella flinched. That was not the kind of sentence he hoped for when he chose to confess.

'Your Honor, you should consider our brainwashed condition before deciding on our sentence', Campanella suggested. 'We came here with confessions on our own, after all.’

' _You_  came,' Osrbone reminded dryly from his seat in the courtroom. 'And _she_ did, because her cards told her so. The others ran off, like cowards that they are, after feeling disappointed in their creed.'

‘I’ll help you catch them all.’

* * *

***after the court session***

 

‘Can I talk to Luci?’ Shera wondered aloud, addressing no one in particular.

 ‘Sure. I'm a prince.’

 ‘I do not see the connection…’

But Olivert was already dragging her by hand towards Luci. Policemen stepped away, seeing that the one coming was the Erebonian prince. It wasn’t alright for them to allow random people to chat to their criminal, but he was a prince and there were no rules for royalties.

‘Hi, Luci,’ Shera said lamely, lost for words. ‘Haven’t seen you in a while.’

Luciola glanced at her but did not reply.

‘So you weren't only a member of Ouroboros,’ Shera continued after an awkward pause. ‘But their Grandmaster… How come? Even enforcers you worked with in Liberl didn’t know that you were their Grandmaster. Was your whole backstory an elaborate lie?’

‘Of course it was,’ Luciola admitted without batting an eyelid. ‘And why does that surprise you?’

‘You told me that you joined Ouroboros to explore your newly discovered Darkness,’ Shera said, using an accusatory tone of voice. ‘But that could not be true… If you were the Grandmaster, you had to be one for much longer.’

Mueller Vander, who was naturally present at the scene, patted Olivert’s arm and whispered a piece of random Erebonian news to him to distract him from this conversation. It was important to Shera and he didn’t want the prince to spoil it by butting in and saying something stupid.

‘Oh Shera, Shera,’ Luciola shook her head. ‘People tend to be naïve, but you? I’m surprised you were so eager to believed my story.’

Shera looked distraught now. She secretly hoped for some kind of reunion, some kind of closure, but hearing Luciola speak  like that was just distressing.

‘I’ll take pity on you and explain,’ Luciola finally decided after seeing her upset face. ‘Naturally, I told everybody a story they would expect. In Zemuria, people are prejudiced, after all. A love story, they think, is what suits a woman, for she could have no worthy motive of her own. Women care only for men. People readily believe that.’

‘Haha...’ Shera laughed a bit sadly. ‘The way you put it, I guess I _was_ naïve to believe your backstory.’

‘Not naïve, just… blind,’ Luciola shrugged. ‘The word ‘naïve’ presupposes _some intelligence_ , even though unused.’

Two young guys from the courtroom walked up to their conversation location curiously and stared at Shera’s breasts, nose-bleeding. Their name badges read: ‘Randy from Crossbell’ and ‘Lazy from Crossbell’. Everybody had to wear a badge to court, so that the judge would always know who spoke up in the courtroom.

‘Ah, and I should mention _this_ , I guess…’ Luciola said, noticing them. ‘You even dress after me, poor Shera, nearly copying the way I used to dress while pretending to be an enforcer… Yet the reason I dressed like I did was the same. Zemurian women have no privacy, no choice, our bodies must be on display to pander to the lowest of men… Look at these two imbeciles from Crossbell, they’re very representative of this problem with quality of male human beings -- or should I say male animal beings -- in Zemuria.’

Shera looked. The guys were staring at her breasts wide-eyed and with no shred of intellect to be detected, mouth-opened and drooling, their hands shamelessly performing rapid movements over their bulges…

‘That’s Zemurian culture for you,’ Luciola shrugged. ‘That’s all they think of when they see a woman, and that’s the kind of people they seek to pander to. But I used _that_ to my advantage. As an enforcer, I dressed in a shameful, self-humiliating way. For me, that was just another trick so that nobody would take me seriously, regarding me as fanservice, nothing more. And they all ate my disguise up, even you… Check the popularity polls, as an enforcer I am the least interesting to have ever existed. Nobody cares for me or respects me or remembers me. That was a great strategical disguise, don’t you think?’

Shera finally looked down at her clothes and even tried to hide the asset-revealing parts with her hands. Indeed, she copied her ‘elder sis’ Luciola dressing style in some little ways.

In fact, Shera happened to be on the same page with Rean in terms of clothing, but she didn’t know that. She still wore her troupe's gypsy-like outfit, years after the troupe ceased to exist. She wore it day and night even in Trails in the Sky games, although by that time she’d already committed herself to being a bracer. She and Rean, who’d wear a school outfit to the end of his days, would apparently find a lot in common to talk about. And they could drink together, too.

‘You know, there’s a guy named Rean…’ Olivert started saying with a rare thoughful look on his face.

Mueller kicked him in the shin as inconspicuously as possible. If Olivert wanted to marry Shera, it would be silly to tell her now that she and Rean were soulmates. Besides, Mueller still had hope for Shera. She couldn’t be as lousy as Rean. In fact, Mueller had more than hope, he had some feelings for her. Yet he wouldn’t ever admit it, as clearly he was just an unimportant NPC and couldn’t marry Shera himself. He really wanted to kick Randy and Lazy all the way back to their Crossbell, too, but he couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t initiate such an action. Apparently, Luciola was somewhat right and female characters in Zemuria had no privacy, and nobody could even punish guys like these ones.

* * *

Everybody was leaving the courtroom now, one by one. Bracers from all over the world, policemen from Crossbell, and many other characters gave Olivert a similarly sad, disappointed look before stepping out and going home. All of them came to Erebonia to fight Ouroboros, yet they've never got a chance…

‘I hoped for a great piece of action, too,’ Shera sighed. ‘Why did we have to wait till Osborne and Ouroboros _weaken each other_ , whose idea was that? Ah, right. Olivert, you’re such a goof…’

Olivert turned away and shed a secret tear. It hurt to be told the truth, but it hurt more when the one telling it was Shera.


	6. Chapter 5. In The Wake of the Trial

**CHAPTER 5. IN THE WAKE OF THE TRIAL**

 

‘We must do something, Ries!’ A stupid-looking guy with spiky green hair kept pacing the room frantically. In his past, he happened to be the main protagonist of Trails in the Sky: the 3rd. ‘Not only Osborne had annexed North Ambria while we were all chillin' at Olivert’s -- no, I mean while we were busy strategically waiting for the war to play out to our advantage, -- but he is now threatening the Church of Aidios with war! How dares he, damn heretic! All heretics must be…’  
  
‘Ah, that,’ Ries said, biting on a cracker. She happened to be an unfortunate side-kick to the protagonist. ‘I wonder why he’s doing that. I didn’t think he was stupid, you know? Doesn’t he know that the Church had been implied to have the strongest characters in all of Trails games?’  
  
‘Well, he’s old, right?’ Kevin shrugged. ‘It’s probably just a case of an ancient brain decomposing…’  
  
‘Ancient? Oh Kevin...' Ries rolled her eyes and took another bite. ‘He looks pretty young and swell for someone with an ancient brain. Which I really have no explanation for... You know, in other, parallel worlds people living in medieval times age down so quickly...'

'Having visions of other worlds again, Ries?' Kevin sighed, looking at her with concern. 'Maybe we should talk to someone with more experience about that... Like, a good psychiatrist, you know? Just saying, just saying...'

'I've found out that the reason they age down quickly,' Ries continued, ignoring him completely. 'Is that their hygiene is awful. They live like pigs, rarely washing themselves and crapping into fireplaces... '

'Ries? I like your highly imaginative stories, I really do, even when they sound disgusting, but I've heard only good things of our Church psychologist.'

'That explains why they age rapidly,' Ries continued, pausing just to take another bite. 'It's easy to catch disease and just generally age quicker when your hygienic standards are so low. But what about Zemuria? Have you ever seen a toilet anywhere, in any house or apartment throughout the games? I have not. Where do we crap, Kevin, what do you think?'

Kevin actually gave some thought to her question, realizing that he hadn't seen a single toilet, either. The thought troubled him greatly. Sometimes Ries was sharp, he could give her that.

'But the real mystery is this!' Ries said. 'Why is all water in our sewers pure and clean? For Aidios' sake, we even fish in the sewers! In all other worlds sewers are a terrible place and certainly not livable for the fishes. Stuff from toilets goes through pipes right into the sewers...'

'What?' Kevin frowned. 'From toilets through pipes? Haha, Ries, that's really funny. Really, that was a good one! Who'd ever think up something wild like that, connecting toilets to sewers by pipes... You should write fantasy novels! That would be a healing process for you, too. Sewers... Sewers were built to serve as underground strolling walkways with fishing spots, did you forget that? Read a damn tour guide, haha...'

'So if we don't have sewers and toilets functioning properly to boost our hygiene, then how come we're so clean and we age so slowly?' Ries said. 'I actually realized why, after a lot of thinking... It's magic. There's no magic in other words, so it must be magic that keeps us clean. We wake up and we're clean, right? It's magic.'

Kevin facepalmed. Ries was so incredibly stupid and lately a bit unhinged, but he loved her anyway. Naturally, they woke up clean in Zemuria. That's how it always was, is, and will be. There was no reason to give it any thought or try to see some deeper meaning to it.

'On another note, you said that Osborne annexed North Ambria...' Ries took another cracker from the table, the last one. 'But where did you pick up the word ‘annexed’? I thought that that's a modern word from modern culture that didn’t exist in medieval -- or rather steam-punkish -- time of ours yet… Aren’t we supposed to have no such values as respecting the sovereignty of states? In other worlds, some big event always happens for such values to get established, like an all-out world war. Sometimes it takes two such wars, until someone comes up with a weapon of mass-destruction horrible enough that it could wipe out their entire world...'

'Wow, Ries,' Kevin shook his head in disbelief. 'You imagination knows no bounds. You really should start writing, I'm not joking about it.'

'...and then politicians gather, trembling, and establish that borders are now sacred. Sometimes it happens before the weapon of mass-destruction gets invented, but in that case they don't respect their own new rules and a world war happens again. And again, and again, until the weapon of mass destruction appears...'

'You have a dark idea of the nature of human beings,' Kevin sighed. 'Only villains act like that, only villains! Well, there are other dark guys, like _me_ , but we're all either just deluding outselves into thinking that we're dark or we're misguided guys with golden hearts who're going to spring at the first opportunity to do good and redeem themselves! All other people have no darkness to them from the start, though they're genuinely nice and dandy. That's why all you ever need is to remove one villain, everyone else will behave nicely... Playing computer games on the orbal network taught me that. You should stop being such a nunny nun and try them sometimes, too.'

Ries waited until his speech was finally over and went on:

'...Anyway, when they finally gather again to talk about state sovereignty, they do it solely out of fear for their hides, since previously they were more than happy to pillage each other's countries for money and loot for many centuries. But after the weapon of mass destruction is invented they suddenly start caring for the sacred sovereignty of all national borders... Anyway, that's how the new value gets established among the population. They accept it with gratitude and happiness, of course, since they've always been the ones getting slaughtered. Rulers and a part of male population have profited from wars for millenia: rulers wanted more territory for taxes and soldiers wanted to pillage and rape... But tell me, Kevin, did such an event take place in Zemuria? An all-out war?'

'Yeah, I think so,' Kevin yawned. 'During the Dark Ages, right? And then our Septian Church appeared and saved the day.'

'I wonder how it did that,' Ries smiled a somewhat twisted smile, almost scaring Kevin. 'Something tells me a lot of bloodshed was involved, enough to overpower everybody else, not that they'd ever tell us _that_ in official history lessons. We're glorified heroes. But anyway, to get back to topic: why _do_ we respect the borders between countries? There's no weapon of mass destruction in Zemuria. Come to think of it, not all of us respect the borders, the Erebonians don't... Does it mean that a weapon of mass destruction got invented and everybody else knows about its existence, except the Erebonians?’

‘What? Ries, what are you talking about, sorry, but this particular fantasy and your train of thought has no logic to it at all. A weapon of mass destruction making country leaders pretend to be kind and caring? Wow, just wow. Don't put that into your novels and don't repeat it in public, it's too dumb. And I'm not insulting you here, just stating facts, okay? Now stop stuffing yourself like a pig and let’s go to war!’  
  
‘I'd rather go to peaceful negotiations,' Ries sighed, putting the last piece of a cracker into her mouth. ‘But whatever.  For starters, let's go see what's going on.’  
  
She didn’t get upset that Kevin was impossible to get through to. He was stupid, but she loved him just the way he was. That said, Ries had flashes of real enlightenment lately, ever since attending the Ouroboros Trial with Kevin. She got no character development in the games and didn't know anything about herself apart from the fact that she liked to eat, but lately she started feeling insightful and even received knowledge of other worlds through visions. That was unusual and she suspected that the world tried to balance itself out this way. She, who served basically as just scenery and human props for telling Kevin's backstory, was now given more intelligence and knowledge than him to make up for it.

Ries had no idea who did that and who'd even care to do her justice, but since she was a nun and worshipped Aidios, she found it logical to believe that the visions came from Aidios and now prayed to her with more fervor than ever before.

* * *

  
The enforcers and anguises who ran off got caught, thanks to helpful efforts of Campanella. He was now officially the head of an anti-terrorist police force in Erebonia and a new Ironblood. Most of ex-Ouroboros members reluctantly confessed to their crimes in court. Those got put to work in labor camps to make up for their crimes by serving society. But some enforcers proved to be obstinate and still quite deluded, publicly swearing loyalty to their Grandmaster and her teaching in court. Those got branded as heretics and jailed forever, with great public support. But one enforcer in particular proved to be a different case: apparently he was mentally ill.  
  
‘Poor Bleublanc,’ Claire sighed. ‘I understand him so much... He couldn't accept himself the way he was. Just think of it: he had to pretend to be a noble, because he thought he had no worth at all if he was a commoner. He could find his true calling in joining our cause of fighting for equality, but instead he went insane from sorrow and started committing evil deeds…’  
  
‘Insanity doesn’t excuse his deeds!’ Millium said angrily. ‘I mean he isn't _utterly_ insane... He just has issues but is still capable of making a moral choice... So he deceived and dumped many women to prove himself how cool he is as a 'noble'! He's nothing but a despicable hypocrite who's caused a lot of moral damages to living breathing people. They should all sue his butt to death, I swear... ’  
  
Campanella who was hanging around at the time nodded automatically. He recently became Millium’s boyfriend and that’s how he quickly got into the habit of just nodding to whatever she said. He figured it was going to save him a lot of headache. Overall, he felt pretty great these days: not only he got rid of the biggest brainwasher in the world messing up his life, but he finally had his first ever chance to date! Two miserable human beings stuck being young teenagers forever, they fit together like a glove.

‘Bleublanc deserves a death sentence!’ Millium continued vehemently. ‘Poor Altina… If it was not for me and my wisdom, she’d have actually believed that he liked her… Coz he’s a pedobear, to boot… eww.’  
  
Unbeknownst to them, Altina already had a childish crush on Bleublanc anyway. It was super embarrassing, so she never told anyone, not even Millium. Especially not Millium. Besides, it was so stupid, after all, the only reason she grew to like him was because he kept flattering her in hopes of bedding her. But knowing rationally that all his flirting was a lie didn’t help, Altina's life was so empty and for such a long time that she couldn’t resist even fake flattery. She wanted to believe it too much.

Well, there was one other guy who'd shown some interest in her, but Altina felt nothing but disgust for McBurn. No matter how flashy he dressed up, he couldn't hide his infantile personality.  
  
So Altina was the one who opposed Millium’s punishment plan for Bleublanc that she came up with and planned to execute soon, the Judge's opinion be damned. Millium planned to have him transported to Phantasma to live out a nightmare of finding a romantic soulmate and then being dumped, over and over again, unable to realize that he’s just dreaming and that nothing over there is real. Instead, on Altina’s insistence, Bleublanc was directed to therapy sessions in prison. Soon he saw the wrong of his ways but instead of taking responsibility for his deeds and confessing his sins like he should've, he blamed Falcom for his crimes against women, as well as all his thefts. The therapist just shrugged it off, saying that he’s crazy and they shouldn’t concern themselves with questions like whoever that Falcom guy was. It was all a figment of Bleublanc’s imagination who couldn’t accept that only he alone was guilty of his crimes.  
  
‘But I swear that I’ve heard that name before,’ Lechter objected. ‘Wasn’t it daddy Gilliath who brought it up?’  
  
‘Daddy…’ Claire mumbled incredulously. ‘Stop giving a shock to the therapist. She doesn’t know that Millium’s habit to call him ‘gramps’ rubbed off on you so much, she could believe you! Now imagine if that got into newspapers. All kinds of people would be after you, all those who want to hurt him. I'm not prepared to lose you just yet, especially for a reason as stupid as that.'  
  
‘C’mon, don't act so shy, we’re all one big family!’ Lechter smiled non-chalantly. ‘Old ma… Gilliath is our daddy, we two are his children soon to be happily married, and Milly and Alty... and now Campy, too... are our children and his grandchildren. That said, Rufus the Doofus doesn’t fit into this picture of the Ironblood family… Who is he to us?’  
  
‘What a deep question!’ Claire said, laughing. ‘We should all think about it hard: who is Rufus Albarea to us, really? Lech, you’re such an idiot, but that’s a big part of why I love you.’  
  
The prison therapist who became an unwitting witness to that exchange quit her job the next day. She realized she was wasting her life treating the wrong people anyway.

* * *

There was another case among the Ouroboros members who belatedly proved to be different from others, and that was McBurn. At first, the Judge spent a lot of time trying to decide what to do about him. On one hand, McBurn obviously didn’t give a damn about Ouroboros, but it was unclear if it was fair to say that he was forced to work for them. The Judge nearly let him go, until he learnt that McBurn had issues with money and no job and wasn’t going to search for one. Secretly on these grounds, but officially on others, the Judge sent him to the labor camp, just like others. He hoped that it would be a good start for him to get into the habit of working for a living.

However, at the labor camp McBurn chose to do nothing, he’d just lie around anywhere and everywhere, half-dreaming about something. Nobody knew how to deal with such a case of blatant disobedience, so they tried to punish him with hunger. After McBurn received no food for two days and still didn’t give a damn, the camp overseer came personally to talk sense into him. He promised McBurn that no matter how childishly he behaves, they won’t budge. McBurn didn’t care. After two more days the overseer came by again and asked sarcastically how he fought with the feeling of hunger, for it must’ve been vicious by now, right? McBurn replied that it was very easy, as he didn’t feel hunger anyway. That explanation made the overseer suspect something and he called in a psychologist.

The psychologist who came happened to be the same psychologist who had previously assessed Bleublanc. After she quit her prison job she went to look for work at other places, but the existence of psychologists wasn't wide-spread knowledge in Zemuria, so she only found a job when the labor camp overseer suddenly called for one. As a result of her examination, she found that McBurn was apathetically depressed, with symptoms of depression slightly above average in strength. Nobody was more surprised than him. He tried to argue, saying that he’d been that way all along, since his teens, but got promptly educated on the existence of chronic depression. His mother received blame for having never realized that something was amiss while he was still young, and McBurn got transferred from the labor camp to a special asylum for depressed patients and offered treatment. Technically he could refuse the treatment but chose not to. It was nearly the first time in his life, since as long as he remembered himself, that he experienced hope.

* * *

Having learnt of this unexpected development, Altina became very thoughtful. She couldn’t help but wonder if the superficial similarity that she sensed between herself and McBurn was more than superficial. Lechter, who didn’t believe that there was anything amiss with her, expressed dismay at her suggestion but still took her to that camp psychologist they've all grown to know and love. Just to humor a kid.

A few sessions in, Altina received an official diagnosis: a schizoid personality disorder. Upon hearing that, Millium became enraged, but that didn’t change the psychologist’s opinion in the slightest. Bravely withstanding all threats and curses, she claimed that greatly dulled emotions, in Altina’s case, were an integral part of that disorder, and that a lot of other stuff that Millium 'wouldn’t understand' pointed squarely at it.

Millium was upset, but Altina was secretly happy. She knew there was something wrong with her, no people with emotions that dull actually existed, after all, and being a video game character she was prepared to accept the realism that came with becoming real. In her opinion, anything was better than being a trope of an apathetic anime girl. She’d already accepted the way she was and now she had _a reason_ for the way she was.

That was the first time Altina and Millium argued, and Lechter told Millium to be glad about that, since Altina finally discovered who she was for herself and even took a stand against Millium’s objection to that discovery. For her, that was a great development.

Lechter himself was upset, though. He didn’t detect anything out of the norm with Altina, he, a resident psychologist of the Ironbloods! And now he felt guilty. Claire comforted him by saying that naturally as a spy he got trained in psychology, but only in normal psychology. A spy has to deal with normal people, that was how they trained him, and there was no way for him to detect something that fell outside of the scope of the relative norm.

For her part, Claire still didn’t come to terms with how dissonant her personality was, what’s with her title of Icy Maiden but less than cold behavior... How could that be, was she ever cold and harsh enough to warrant that title and then forgot about it?.. She tried asking the people who gave her that nickname, the people at work, and found out that all of them were horribly scared of her. She was very puzzled. She had no memory of ever behaving in ways that could make people tremble at her sight.

But looking at these recent developments with McBurn and Altina, she realized that she was wrong to try to fit herself into a neat and normal category. She took a deep breath and requested counsel from the same psychologist, yeah that nameless one whom we all love, and was told after quite a few difficult sessions that she had at least two distinct personalities: one was her normal self, the one that Claire knew well and was aware of, and the other -- a cold andcalculative personality that appeared from time to time, leaving Claire with no trace of memory of it. Her official diagnosis was a dissociative personality disorder, more commonly known as multiple personalities. Amnesia was a normal part of the disorder when left untreated, the psychologist explained, but they could push the personalities closer to each other. Not to the point of eliminating all but one, but to the point when they could co-exist, with no amnesia effects.

Claire felt simultaneously creeped out and fascinated by the oddities of her own mind.

* * *

'Here,' Altina said, stretching her hand out to McBurn with a plate of blackberries. 'Eat some.'

She took to visiting him regularly in the asylum for the depressed after her first curiosity-spurred visit. Her own self-discovery and coming to terms with the way she was prompted her to reconsider her stance about McBurn. After all, she only felt so much disgust towards him because she sensed the similarity between them. It was a projection of her own disgust towards herself. But once she accepted herself, she could accept McBurn, as well.

'I remember the taste,' McBurn said after trying the blackberries out. 'These were the berries in mother's illusion, back on The Glorious when you were invited for a test. I've never tasted the likes of them before, these must be pretty rare berries... So they appeared for you? Your favorite ones?'

Altina nodded.

'Sis searched for them far and wide for me,' she said. 'They're extremely rare.'

Suddenly McBurn stopped eating. He put the plate on the table and pushed it slightly, so that it slid back to Altina.

* * *

Just one week before the war with the Church was set to start, a wedding happened. There were many weddings happening that week, of course, but only one of those was the Ironblood wedding. Osborne himself walked Claire to the altar and Lechter was accompanied by Altina. The person handing out the rings was smiling Millium and even Campanella did his part by handing out the flowers. As far as they were concerned, that was a real family event.

Come to think of it, that family event missed one of its elements: Rufus... Being the official leader of the Ironbloods, he was unofficially a stranger in their 'family' and he never cared to change that situation. Like, this particular case presented him a great opportunity to participate, but he just apologized and said he'd be too busy. Well, nobody expected anything different by that point.

A week flew by quickly and finally the day of war has come...

* * *

‘Oookay then,’ Lechter said to Rufus on the phone and yawned. ‘You do your thing, we do ours… Now isn’t it nice being a general and leading a war against the Church?’  
  
‘It isn’t,’ Rufus replied. ‘My younger brother thinks that I’m a bully and the Church has branded me a heretic. But what wouldn’t I do for the chancellor…’


	7. Chapter 6. The Epic Showdown of Minds

**CHAPTER 6. THE EPIC SHOWDOWN OF MINDS**

 

These days the Orbal Internet was rapidly growing. Thanks to the chancellor’s renovation efforts, it was getting installed almost everywhere in Erebonia now, even in trains. Not that Olivert ever appreciated his efforts, apparently he thought that Orbal Internet was spreading on its own, like a virus. But others did. People were happy that for the first time in their lives they could talk freely to all other people across Zemuria. It was a big mystery why everybody in Zemuria spoke one single language, though...  
  
‘So, Your Highness,’ Osborne said from across the screen. He was currently located in North Ambria, on a short break from the war effort that involved attacking the theocrathical state of Arteria, governed by the Church of Aidios.  ‘I repeat once again. As you well know, I’m for social and financial and gender and all around equality for our people. I like things to be fair. Given that you oppose me so passionately, pray tell me what you’d do differently.’  
  
Olivert scratched his head, forgetting for a moment that right now he was a prince and not a minstrel. Sometimes he confused his roles. Especially when he was talking to people who were aware of both of those roles, people like the chancellor.  
  
‘I’d do the same,’ he said finally. ‘Oh and I’ve never heard of financial and gender equality, only of social. But they sound neat. Now that you mention it, maybe I should add them to my list of revolutionary changes, too.’  
  
Mueller Vander winced. He was standing right by, witnessing this hopeless exchange. The man existed solely to suffer as a nanny to a prince and he bore his life stoically. Few would have strength of will to live through it.  
  
‘Then why are we enemies?’ Osborne said, with a little bit of sarcasm this time. ‘Would Your Highness please come up with a reason?’  
  
‘You like to annex countries,’ Olivert offered.  
  
‘By annex,’ Osborne frowned. ‘Do you mean that they agree on their own to join Erebonia, because they want to partake in equality and progress that their own leaders won’t allow them?’  
  
‘Don’t make it sound so nice!’ Olivert looked upset. Not because he cared for those countries, but because he realized that he could lose the argument. ‘The ones who agree are the leaders, people with power. Did you ever ask the masses if they want what you're offering them?’  
  
‘I don’t need to ask, it’s obvious what the peasants think. And I care only for peasants. If initially I have to manipulate the people in power to get to peasants what they need, that's fine with me and should be morally acceptable even for you.’

Olivert was sour and salty and all kinds of distasteful by that point.  
  
‘Alright, alright...’ He suddenly looked like he had a great idea. ‘But what about Crossbell? North Ambria? Those were truly scandalous takeovers.'  
  
‘Crossbell is going to benefit from my corruption cleansing politics,’ Osborne said with confidence the prince could only envy. ‘Ordinary citizens will no doubt appreciate seeing the mafia that plagued them booted back to Calvard and many dehumanizing practices from the Backstreet removed. The common folk like food vendors and librarian NPCs will no doubt be happier once they stop working like slaves without days off. Those unregulated work conditions in Crossbell are intolerable. And on top of that, a minimum wage has to be established by the government, with the law fully prepared to punish those who drive their employees like slaves just for basic survival.’

'Chancellor, you make all of it sound so dramatic!' Olivert facepalmed, forgetting to behave royally again. 'But stop exaggerating. The common folk don't live as badly as you pretend they do, otherwise they'd be dying left and right from hunger and illness. But they live, they eat well, they can afford medicine when they fall ill, they have kids, they've got enough money to raise and clothe and educate them. Where is the poverty you speak of? You're just using it as an excuse to push your hidden sinister agenda... And unfortunately, it's working. People love to hear stuff like that, whole crowds can fall for it in but a moment... And they do.'

'We both paid a visit to Crossbell for the World Trade Conference a few years back. Have you taken that chance to see Crossbell for yourself, Your Highness?'

'Sure, I visited the red light district of theirs, the so-called Backstreet,' Olivert shared with a big smile, not realizing that it was probably something rather shameful to admit in front of Osborne. 'I've been there twice during that visit! And I've been to the Old Town disctrict, too, which they called Downtown in the game, but I'm pretty sure it was meant to be called Old Town...'

(As _always_ , there's no need to smear the prince, he always succeeds to be a fool on his own! :-) Well, he did visit those places in Ao no Kiseki. He kept obstinately singing, unwelcome, on top of a decrepit shop until the owner forcefully kicked him down, then ran back to the red light district that he'd professed to take a great liking to.)

'That's not enough for assessment,' Osborne dismissed the prince's knowledge of Crossbell in one go, just like that. 'Have you visited the apartment blocks strewn all over Crossbell? Have you seen that these people don't even have toilets?'

'Really?' Olivert looked surprised. ' _They, too?!_  In Liberl they don't have toilets, either... I know that from Trails in the Sky games, and I've walked all over Liberl, a country which consists of only 5 towns so it was easy to walk all over... Strangely, they do have plumbing: I've seen sinks, just no toilets. They must have group toilets somewhere outside... No I haven't seen those, either... Oh, I know, maybe their custom is to house toilets in basements, away from prying eyes, and so _that's why_ I've never seen one!'

Osborne tactfully didn't ask how Olivert dealt with the predicament of having never located a single toilet in Liberl. There were some things he just didn't care to know about the prince.

'Leaving the subject of poor hygiene aside,' Osborne said. 'Apartments in Crossbell are tiny and consist of one single room. Whole families have to live there with no privacy. Neither they can move out, as none of them apparently owns their own home.'

'It sounds crammy... But nobody complains, so they must be fine with it. You're overanalyzing it...'

'And how would they complain? Please share your ideas.'

'A revolt?' Olivert shrugged. 'If they cared to, they'd have revolted long ago. But Crossbell is democratic, so they could succeed in changing policies even without having to take up arms. Their government actually listens to them, unlike _some_ people who just impose their policies everywhere they go... Crossbell citizens have never protested their own government, which means they're fine with how it governed them.'

Mueller sighed. It was clear both to him and to Osborne that Olivert knew pretty little about Crossbell.

'Have you been to the main square in Crossbell?' Osborne asked suddenly.

'Maybe?..' Olivert said without much confidence. 'It think I ran through it a few times... I _had_ to run, you see, a police squad was chasing after me, haha...'

'The main square represents the real situation of Crossbell very well,' Osborne said, not at all surprised that police would be chasing after the prince. 'The main square used to be a sight of beauty in the past. But now, with the recent economical boom, it's transformed into a small place walled in with shops from all sides. The main square is now quite dubiously adorned with huge ugly shop signs. Visiting it is like visiting a market, and that's what Crossbell is these days: a bunch of companies who slavedrive people to make a town full of shops for tourists.'

'Are you saying that economical growth is bad?' Olivert looked at the chancellor in mock dismay. 'I'm sure that is not what you imply, but that's how it sounds... Stop clinging to the past, chancellor, the change is inevitable! Pastoral towns turn into big marketplaces, and that's how it's supposed to be'.

Osborne closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to keep his sanity intact while listening to Olivert.

'I'm afraid you're missing my point, Your Highness,' he finally said. 'Change is not at fault, _people_ are at fault. It's always people, only people. Crossbell allows for a lot of abuse. And when something is allowed, those who will abuse it will come.'

Seeing no indication of agreement on Oliverts face, Osborne added:

'To provide an example, the glaring absence of the minimum wage regulation allows businessmen to work people to the bone, with compensation enough just for their basic day-to-day survival... So that they could come back to work next day.'

'I will say it once again, chancellor: nobody complains. Which means they like it the way it is. Why do you insist on imposing your own will on another country, especially a democratic country? They choose to live like that on their own, it's their free choice. To my dismay, I start suspecting that you actually believe in what you're saying, but I doubt it's as dramatic as you want to think it is. It sounds like a conspiracy theory. Poor people exist, but they can't have all been abused to the point of being poor. I believe that some of them are living under unfortunate circumstances, but others are just lazy.'

'Were you to run for mayor in Crossbell, such speeches wouldn't win you the elections.'

'I know that,' Olivert readily agreed. 'And I'd never tell any of this in public... Instead I'd sing and joke, to everyone's delight! People hate it when you tell the hard truth.'

'Or alternatively,' Osborne offered. 'They hate it because it's a lie.'

Standing silently like a statue, Mueller wondered if Olivert really had some believes about the world or if he was merely rebelling against Osborne by being so contrary. He'd never heard the prince talk like that before. Then again, he'd never heard him in a deep conversation before. The prince didn't normally engage in deep conversations.

'So there _is_ a conspiracy...' Olivert rolled his eyes. 'Those who have power or money conspire to oppress all the rest?'

'Yes, but that's not a conspiracy, that's normal state of affairs,' Osborne nodded. 'For centuries that's how humanity had lived, we aren't much different from animals. What I want is to change that, and you start any change by changing believes. The common folk will never rebel if they continue to believe that nobles and royalties are sacred. Or, in Crossbell's case, that people in power can do whatever they want with that power, provided that they got it legally in the first place'.

'So much talk about money,' Olivert shook his head. 'Money this, money that... You complain how greedy people are, but aren't you the one who is obsessed with topic of money the most?'

For a while Osborne was silent, and then he asked, slightly puzzled:

'I have a question for you, Your Highness: why _do_ you oppose social unequality in Erebonia?'

'Oh, but the word equality has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?' Olivert had a chuckle. 'And I'm a nice person, so I want everyone to be equal! It's morally damaging for people to think they're lower than others, and that's much more important than the drivel you've come up with to win crowds over. I do care for dignity of the people, but I don't care for problems that don't even exist.'

Silence fell and Mueller was sure that Osborne would finally cut the orbal network line, exasperated, but he proved to have the patience of an angel and he said:

'Just for the sake of an argument, let's play a game. We'll pretend that I am right about the situation in our world and you'll tell me what I'm still doing wrong if I am right about it.'

Mueller felt curious about the outcome of the game. It almost sounded like Osborne believed that one day the prince would inevitably grow up and realize the truth of the situation and wanted to see what else could keep him in opposition.

It took Olivert five minutes to come up with an answer that he already came up with before:

'You annex countries.'

'And what is the problem with that? Remember that we're still pretending that I am right and the circumstances of their citizens are dire.'

It took Olivert five more minutes and he said, with an unusually gloomy face and with great reluctance:

‘The problem is that... you’re setting a precedent. Someone else is going to abuse your normalization of annexation policies afterwards, someone will much less... ahem... noble goals.'

Olivert paused after calling Osborne's goals noble. It was unusual for him to believe Osborne even theoretically. He tried to think it over for the first time: were Osborne’s goals noble or not, separated from everything else? He couldn't come to a definite conclusion, which was quite a disturbing experience for him, but contrary to what you might think, the biggest reason for his indecision was not the moral complexity of the issue, it was ignorance. The prince really didn't know the basic things, like what Osborne actually did to countries after annexing them. For the first time ever, Olivert realized that none of the games ever elaborated on that point at all. Which made it very easy for him to hate Osborne, since he was against annexations, and without anything else to know about Osborne and how he treated people, the situation looked black and white.

‘So, what do you do to the people abroad after stealing their countries?’ Olivert asked reluctantly.

‘You’re a member of the Royal Family,’ Osborne reminded. ‘Surely you’ve seen all relevant reports on my activities and can judge the result of my actions for yourself.’

Olivert didn’t remember seeing any reports. Ever. But he did remember how in Sky: the 3rd he agreed with Osborne that their goals were the same, only the means to achieve them differed. Which meant that he did see some reports before, he just forgot about them completely… It also meant that since Osborne’s goals were the same, he was essentially a good guy -- after all, Olivert considered his own goals to be good and noble. Naturally. He was a prince, and all princes in video games were good and noble.

‘So what  _are_  you…’ Olivert winced, recollecting all he’d ever read about tropes on the orbal network. ‘...an Anti-Villain who thinks that Utopia Justifies the Means? The first Totalitarian Utilitarian of Zemuria?’

‘I’m a real person, not a character,’ Osborned waved off his attempts to label him. ‘But if you insist, I’d rather call myself a Designated Villain. My ‘means’ are certainly not evil. They could be, if abused after the precedent, as you've pointed it, by someone else. But even that would not change their essentially neutral nature. Human beings are the ones who make things good or evil.’

‘But what about the future? We’ve all seen that one single bullet can put an end to everything...' Olivert paused, looked at healthy Osborne, but decided not to sweat the details. '...And then what? People who want to abuse the precedent will come and do it. And they’ll tell everyone they’re doing it for the same saintly reasons you did, while in reality they’d do it just for money and power...’

Mueller stared at the prince, shocked. Once the prince realized that he didn't know what Osborne did to those countries and a possibility of something good appeared, he was able to switch gears pretty fast and play their imaginary game unhindered by bias. Afer thinking this, Mueller felt sad that once again he was standing there just to think and react to Olivert's and Osborne's verbal exchange. Ever a prop to tell someone else's story.

‘So in your opinion, it’s better to be cautious and do nothing? Even if you happen to have the power to make a change?’ Osborne shook his head. ‘Would you even agree with that logic if you were a peasant suffering from poverty and exaggerated taxes? Imagine prince Olivert stroll by your village, dressed in these luxurious clothes you’re wearing now, just to say: live out your life as you do, dear man, I’m too afraid of setting a precedent to make it better.’

‘That’s not what I’d say!’ Olivert objected vehemently. ‘I'd crack a joke to make him happy... And I'd limit myself to Erebonia, that’s all. How peasants in North Ambria live out their lives is not my responsibility. They chose how to live on their own.’

‘Then that’s the difference between us,’ Osborne shrugged. ‘I care for _all_  the poor and the neglected, not just the Erebonians.’

Olivert sighed. Osborne certainly had a talent to make his noblest intentions look near-sighted, sometimes to the point of egocentric.

‘The bottom line is,’ Olivert commented. ‘You _really_ don’t care that others who'll come after you will turn everything into a mocking parody of what you did. Now that's near-sighted.’

‘People’s greed and other flaws of human nature is not my personal responsibility’, Osborne said. ‘Who am I to be on the lookout for their future sins, a god?’

‘But you can take this tendency into account,’ Olivert insisted. 'And...'

‘And resolve to do nothing?’ Osborne frowned. ‘Now wouldn’t  _that_  be a vicious circle… Doing nothing allows the worst to thrive off the rest. But if you do something, eventually the worst will take over anyway…  So why bother with a temporary change at all? What a defeatist kind of strategy that would be, your Highness.’

Olivert sighed again. It was impossible to argue with the chancellor. Osborne simply refused to believe in Utopia, unlike what Olivert had originally thought of him when he pinned him to the Utopia-Justifies-The-Means archetype. On the contrary, Olivert realized, he was dead sure that whoever comes next would end up destroying all he’d worked for. Thinking like this, a temporary change he hoped to make was not an entirely bad idea. It mattered little what kind of precedent he sets, if those after him would bring suffering to the world anyway. With or without the precedent.

‘Your world is a cold and awful place to be,’ Olivert finally said. ‘Why don’t you try to have  _some_  faith in people.’ 

* * *

Rufus Albarea was taking a break from commanding the troops, as well. Just like Mueller, he was listening in, but after the last sentence of the prince he left, more or less content. While the chancellor wasn't looking, he went to his room, dug up a secret orbal phone from his stash and dialed a line to Calvard.

'Everything should be fine,' he reported. 'The prince showed some promise during the test, but at the end of the day I'm much better than him when I fake agreement with the chancellor's values. I'm quite sure that he's going to hint at me as his unofficial successor today. He trusts me more than anybody else in the world.'

In worst traditions of all video games, he suddenly laughed in a 'mwahaha' way, marking himself as a hidden villain revealed. He didn't know why he wanted to laugh like that, it sounded stupid and out of place, but something or someone made him do it.

Then he felt a sudden uncontrollable urge to share some awkward exposition with the person on the phone line:

'When I gain his power for myself, I'll make sure to ruin this country, president Rocksmith of Calvard Republic! I'll announce the first ever Erebonian elections, win them and make sure that Erebonia is so weak that it's no threat to you! I'll run it into the ground with my intentionally incompetent governing! Mwahaha!'

'Why are you explaining what we both already know, Rufus?' The voice of someone, apparently president Rocksmith, sounded concerned. 'And why the creepy laugh? Are you feeling okay, my son?'

Rufus paled.

'I am... your son?' he whispered, dumbfounded. 'Are you serious, president? Please tell me that was just a figure of speech.'

In worst traditions of video games, the president confirmed that he was his father. After all, not only Rean should be able to have a Luke Skywalker moment. With central characters, a trick like this is pandering, the 'I'm-a-child-of-an-important-man!!!' kind of pandering, but how does a reveal like that feel about a mere NPC? Oh poor Rufus, he now suffers just for us to see and judge the effect of misplaced pandering. He is officially a martyr. R.I.P.

'But I already have a father!' Rufus screamed, still struggling with the truth by wielding the only tool left at his disposal: logic.

'Too bad for him,' The president was merciless. 'That means he's been a damn liar to you, all your life!'

* * *

Canceling the orbal phone call, the president chucked. He had no idea that an April Fool's joke like this had already led to one mental breakdown. Rufus was so gullible and fun to mess with that the president couldn't help himself and played along.

* * *

'...'

That was what Mueller eloquently thought to himself. The conversation almost turned friendly, or as friendly as a conversation between enemies could be. Friendly in its own twisted way.

‘That’s right, heretic!’ Olivert raged. ‘I’ll describe your heathen ways in a song, for all to know!’  
  
That outburst happened because the chancellor mentioned the Church and Olivert suddenly remembered that he was waging a war against the Church of Aidios. Like, right now.

If the voting system was to be installed soon, like Osborne wanted, and the Orbal Internet Debates ever became reality, Olivert wasn’t going to be a conqueror of people’s hearts. Not with jokes and songs, Mueller thought, not with jokes and songs.

He wondered why Osborne decided to spend so much time to talk to the prince today. They've never talked for so long before. Heck, outside of short political arguments, they didn't talk at all and were strangers to each other.  
  
'Time's up,' Osborne said all of a sudden. 'I have a Church to crush.'

* * *

Olivert was pacing the room frantically. He needed to stop the chancellor, but he didn't know how.

The army was loyal to the chancellor and not to him. The royal family was mostly just for show in Erebonia these days (all thanks to the chancellor!), so even the emperor couldn't override the war with the Church. The war wasn't popular among the highly religious population, but Osborne's general popularity helped to keep the outrage at bay.

The people whom the prince could ask for help, like bracers, policemen, and various NPCs from previous games, would most likely act like disbelieving villagers at the end of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. For he already invited all of them before just to sit one war out. Even the Ouroboros members were in jail. Dammit. Olivert didn't know why they'd ever agree to help him, but they were in jail anyway. Dammit!

'The Arseille is ready to take off,' Mueller reported, walking into the room. 'I'll ask again: why don't you start using public transport, like the chancellor did since Sky: the 3rd? Arseille costs us a big chunk of taxes to be at your service all the time.'

'I'm a prince, how can I use public transport!' Olivert shook his head in disapproval. 'What would it do to my image?'

'I undertand, but the taxes...'

Olivert was gone before he could finish the sentence.

The prince felt despondent, and the only thing that he could do right now was fly to Liberl and visit Sherazard Harvey. As useless as it was for his country, seeing her would give him, personally, some peace of mind.


	8. Chapter 7. The Truth

**CHAPTER 7. THE TRUTH**

 

The war raged on. Nobody really knew what prompted it and naturally they assumed that it was Osborne’s endless lust for power. Even those who were aware or suspected that the Church was one of strongest and most dangerous organizations in all Zemuria thought so. When asked about the chancellor's strange decision to go to war with it, they’d just shrug and say that his lust for power must've blinded him to the inevitable loss that was coming.

* * *

‘What do you think, my son?’ president Rocksmith asked.

The face of Rufus Albarea darkened on the big screen. Then it quickly brightened again, as if he decided not to show his feelings to the president, and he replied as lightly as always:

‘They'll kill him for sure. I will make sure of that.’

‘Hmmm… Do you perhaps have any regrets?’

‘Of course, not. That small face-change just now? It was provoked by an entirely different reason.’

He stretched his hand towards the camera and apparently pressed something, because the screen went black. That was quite an abrupt, no-goodbye end to the conversation.

'Tsk, tsk.’ The president walked all the way to the mirror. ‘Our boy is growing rebellious.’

'Perhaps it would help if you didn’t call him ‘my son’ all the time,’ Kilika Rowan, a Calvardian spy, offered from her seat. ‘Each time you do it, he gets angry... By now he’s realized the joke of it, I’m sure, and it must be irritating for him that you wouldn’t drop it. What do they say about jokes repeated more than once?’

‘Haha, Ms. Rowan, you’re right, as always’. The president smiled his most charming smile to the mirror. ‘But it wouldn’t be good for my image to appear rational.’

He wasn’t lying. Despite his racist policies in Calvard and his attempt to invade Crossbell with tanks and airbombers, everybody and their toy robot believed him to be just a silly and harmless guy, while Gilliath Osborne they believed to be a personification of ultimate evil. Why such a disparity? Because president Rocksmith smiled charmingly to his mirror every day, training to appear silly and non-threatening. Okay, that was a joke. The real reason was because Zemuria’s creator gods wanted the better ruler to appear evil and the worse one to be whitewashed to the point of appearing harmless. And it helped that Rocksmith had no charisma, it did. He really didn’t look like someone imposing enough to be evil. After all, you had to be very charismatic to be a video game villain, only charismatic people were typically considered to be candidates for baddies.

‘I’m not so sure...’ Kilika said. ‘That Osborne will be killed. Remember what happened the last time…’

‘The last time Rufus was still on his side,’ Rocksmith smirked in a mean way, using the chance: after all, nobody but Kilika was looking at him! ‘And now... now he’s the most likely to assume the mantle of a new chancellor! Our boy did well for himself. And he'll continue working for us, unless he wants his streak of fortune to end. Rufus is too smart to lose a chance like that.’

 

**A FEW HOURS BEFORE**

 

The Ironbloods were extremely busy. While Osborne and Rufus were distracting the Church by their absurd and fake war –- and it was surprising how easily even the Church fell for the trick, -- the others sneaked in to steal the now unguarded Salt Pale that the Church was hiding in their headquarters. It should’ve dried up and curled in on itself sufficiently now to be small enough to be carried, they reasoned. The general idea was that the mysterious Salt Pale was another sept-terrion and thus a source of some mad powers that should be stolen away before the Church misused it one way or another.  
  
Imagine their surprise when instead of a sept-terrion they saw a small note on the ground. Lechter picked it up with a face of an upset baby. Millium snatched it out of his hands, happily announcing ‘Too slow!’ and read as quickly as she could:  
  
‘Sorry guys, there was a ridiculous sept-terrion here, but we’ve removed it after we decided to remove vampires from your world. It’s no longer needed. Falcom.’

Millium gasped for air.  
  
‘Falcom again!’ Claire said. ‘Who in bloody hell…’  
  
‘ _I know_!’ Campanella cried out. ‘I _know_ now! Well, sorta... They’re the ones who made me never age! How unnice, I always wanted to eventually grow into an adult, you know. And they forced dear Millium to be a loli. We’re so lucky to have found each other, otherwise we’d be have been lonely and miserable all our lives…’  
  
Altina perked up. It was so unusual for her to look happy that everybody stared at her.  
  
‘Does it mean,’ she said, averting her eyes. ‘That Bleublanc was telling the truth and all his hideous deeds were caused by these Falcom people?’

Everybody else exchanged a glance. It tooks them quite a while, since there were four of them.

Finally, Campanella nodded and said:

'Most definitely.'  
  
‘How do you know that?’ Lechter asked suspiciously. ‘And don’t you start telling me about tarot cards…’  
  
‘I am _their voice_ ,’ Campy said eerily. ‘Don’t you know how many times they’ve made me break the fourth wall? I frequently talk to myself in games, that’s how they want me to impart exposition to the observers. Sometimes I even talk to the observers directly.’  
  
‘What observers?’ Claire asked. ‘Be clear. Your explanations only make us more confused.’  
  
‘I’m trying, I’m trying!’ Campanella said in despair. ‘Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be clear when you’ve been forced to be cryptic for the duration of all games? It's a heavily ingrained habit by now. And I had to smile all the time to appear more mysterious, too. Ugh, my face is still aching...  
  
‘Gosh, he's so whiny!’ Millium felt impatient. ‘Stop this self-pity party and get to the point, Campy!’  
  
‘All I know for sure is that we’re controlled by these Falcom gods,’ Campy said grimly. ‘They’re like creator gods, but worse, because they robbed us of free will. Even Aidios herself is their creation. And the observers… They’re other gods who can see our world and us.’  
  
Everybody shuddered in shock and disgust. Including Kevin and Ries, who were the only minions of the Church left to guard the Salt Pale. Currently they were hiding in a huge wooden box nearby the wall and shamelessly eavesdropping.  
  
‘It sounds crazy, but it actually explains much,’ Claire said slowly. ‘Much of what _is_ crazy in our world. Like, why we wear the clothes we hate. Or why all those ridiculous superficial crushes on Rean ever happened, even though at least three other boys in Class VII were very attractive, while he was not.’  
  
‘Or why some of us never grow up,’ Campanella added. ‘Couldn’t I… you know, have a life? But noooo, I couldn't grow up…’

‘Stop it!’ Millium soudned irritated. ‘You’re better off! At least you weren’t forced to have a stupid crush on… I don’t know… the protagonist of Sky games. Just imagine, all Ouroboros members having a crush on Estelle. Even Weissmann. Even Loewe. And instead of caring for his friend Joshua, his sole motivation would be something as stupid as superficial feelings for Estelle whom he barely knew. And you... I don't know, you'd jump in front of Estelle during the final battle and kill the final boss just to keep her safe!’  
  
Campanella’s face displayed no small amount of terror.  
  
‘That would be shallow of Loewe', Lechter shook his head non-chalantly, humming a tune to himself. He didn't care for Campanella much, in his opinion Campy could take care of himself, so he ignored the part about him and concentrated on the part about Loewe. 'As if he’d have no life and reasons of his own. No, that wouldn't be our Loewe. Milly, how do you even come up with crap like that?’  
  
‘In fact, did you know...’ Campanella giggled sadistically all of a sudden. ‘Did you know that our Claire was originally supposed to have exactly such a shallow personality in CS3? She was supposed to be torn between the Ironbloods and… a school brigade led by Rean, of all things. No, not because of any respectable reasons of her own, but because of something as dumb as a crush on Rean.’  
  
Claire winced and felt nauseated. Lechter hugged her, telling her that it’s all right now, they’re together and Rean is gone like a nightmare. Claire enjoyed the hug quite clearly. That set the mood for Campanella and, feeling romantic, he attempted to give a hug to Millium. She swatted him off like an annoying flea and asked, puzzled:  
  
‘So why is it so different with us now? We don’t behave stupidly in CS3 at all. Campy, bugger off, would you? We're at work and we have serious stuff to discuss… So, we seem to be treated like real people, you know?’  
  
She looked down, onto an empty space on the floor where the Salt Pale was supposed to be found. Something had clearly changed.  
  
‘Yeah, no kidding, even you are out of character!’ Campanella complained. ‘You’re supposed to be clingy, you know? ‘Bugger off’… How rude.’  
  
‘I am not out of character, I just have more of a character,’ Millium said with pride. ‘Or would you prefer me to always behave in the same manner, always have the same mood? You'd be the first one to run off in terror... Or rather in boredom.’  
  
‘I have a question,’ Altina said all of a sudden. Everybody forgot about everything else immediately, as it was so rare for her to speak up, so they turned to her and stared. ‘Why did these creators want us to be so shallow in the first place?’  
  
Even Kevin in the wooden box started thinking this question over, which was rare for him. Thinking, that is.  
  
‘Maybe they’re sadistic,’ Campanella offered.  
  
‘Don’t judge by yourself!’ Millium snapped.  
  
‘I don’t, and I’m not really sadistic, you know?’ Campanella whined. ‘They just made me behave sadistically once or twice… And I can’t fathom why.’  
  
‘Yeah, right.'

'Who cares for their reasons,’ Claire sighed, clearly tired of their fruitless discussion. ‘What we need is to inform dad... ahem, to inform the chancellor. And to discover how to set ourselves free. ’

That sounded oddly like Luciola’s grand plan of pursuing freedom. Even the wooden box in the corner shook in surprise a little. Something sounding vaguely like ‘Hereti…’ started to be heard coming from it.  
  
‘No, they aren’t heretics,’ Ries whispered quietly, her hand tightly on Kevin’s mouth. ‘They're in the right. And stop fooling around, you aren’t really that stupid… Someone is just making you be, they want to make fun of us. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure that it’s the same person as these Falcom creator gods. At least you weren’t  _that_  stupid before.’  
  
By this time everyone’s attention was on the wooden box, which was obviously whispering something to itself, but before Claire could train her gun on it, they heard loud footsteps coming from behind the door.  
  
‘Scram, everyone!’ Campy squeaked. ‘The Church brutes are back! I don’t think they’re going to believe us when we say that the Salt Pale suddenly disappeared from existence!' 

* * *

The Ironbloods were watching the news grimly. They tried and tried, but their efforts to reach the chancellor failed, so they had to resort to TV for the news, like all ordinary people.

Apparently the war effort went worse than they had anticipated. It was risky from the start, but somehow the Church managed to capture Osborne himself. It was all over the news now. The Church leaders appeared on orbal TV and declared their ultimatum: either the thieves give up something called Salt Pale willingly, or the chancellor was going to die.

They gave three days to the thieves, but the thieves couldn’t return what they didn’t have, even if they wanted to.

‘Why don’t we make a fake pale of salt?’ Campanella offered. ‘Bring in some salt and...’

‘It wasn’t merely salt and you know it best,’ Lechter said. ‘It was salt that could kill anything, apparently even vampires.’

‘But Falcom wrote they removed vampires, so there’s no way to test it now, right? Let’s make some substance deadly enough to eat through anything and tell them that it’s their salt. I could attempt to hand it over and teleport away if something goes wrong.’

‘Even Campy likes gramps,’ Millium said with pride. ‘That’s how cool he is!’

‘What do you mean, _even_?’ Campanella faked indignation. ‘But yeah I’m cool.’

‘I meant that you’ve barely even known him,’ Millium said. ‘But forget it, you’re a mean jerk. Gramps' life is in danger, and you’re making bad jokes like everything is going great.’

‘Okay… Okay…’ Altina said on the phone and put it down. ‘I just talked to Bleublanc, using my VIP prison phone card. He said… Well, first, he said we were all fools, then he said it was good that finally someone believed him.’

‘Where did you get a VIP prison card?’ Millium asked suspiciously.

‘From the chancellor,’ Altina replied succinctly. ‘And then he said that he remembered something vital from the Grandmaster’s predictions…’

‘But why did he give you a VIP prison card? Did you ask for it?’

‘…she told him once that Rufus Albarea would turn out to be a villain.’

Everybody stared at her. Rufus Albarea, a villain? They didn’t know whether they should laugh or cry. Besides, the Grandmaster of Ouroboros didn’t know how to read the tarot in the first place, right? She'd been lying to everyone.

‘Did you request it to talk to Bleublanc?’ Millium prodded. ‘No way! Alty! How could you!’

Altina had to admire her. That was some single-pointedness of mind! Even the yogi would be envious.

There was a knock on the door, which saved her from replying any further. 

‘Who’s there?’ Lechter called out lazily, but actually he was opening the window, just in case.

‘Your dental care,’ a familiar voice replied, using a rhymed password.

By now everybody was climbing out of the window. Just in case.

‘Is anybody home?’ The voice insisted.

He was supposed to ask twice. That was his part of the password game. He wasn’t telling passwords, so he was supposed to ask twice so that others would know it was him.

But rather than say ‘a little merry gnome’, as the second password required, Lechter was the last one to climb out of the window. Just in case.

When Rufus got impatient of screaming out code questions and getting no replies, he finally opened the door and was rewarded with the sight of an Ironblood hideout. A totally empty Ironblood hideout, with one window open wide.

His face took on a puzzled expression. Did they know something? Did they perhaps even know that he was the one who made sure that the chancellor would get captured? Rufus felt guilty for a moment, but the feeling quickly passed.

There was nothing resembling a pile of salt in the room, either, but it made sense for them to take it along. His task was to make sure that nobody attempted to hand it back to the Church.

* * *

A suspicious scratching noise could be heard all throughout the night. Luciola didn’t care: she’d given up on caring much for anything in this world where everybody, including herself, was merely a puppet. She ignored the noise all night and just slept soundly without a worry.  
  
In the morning, though, bricks in the wall of her prison cell started rapidly falling off and a simple feeling of curiosity drove her to give her saviors a look.  
  
‘Hello again,’ Campanella said, smiling apologetically. ‘Sorry for helping to jail you and all.’  
  
‘What matters is that you’ve realized the truth of my teaching. Congratulations.’  
  
‘Yup,’ Lechter agreed. ‘Kind of. And we need a new leader. Hey mama Lu, now let’s get you out of here.’


	9. Chapter 8. On The Brink Of Change

**CHAPTER 8. ON THE BRINK OF CHANGE**

 

The emperor Eugent Reise Arnor stood in his throne room, on the steps in front of his throne, surrounded by a large crowd. It consisted chiefly of Erebonian nobles and journalists. Everybody was eager to witness the historical moment.

Rufus Albarea bent the knee in front of the emperor and was waiting for his declaration.

‘And hereby I declare,’ The emperor started. ‘Our new chancellor to be named…’

‘Wait, father!’

The door smashed open in a flashy way, and Prince Olivert entered the scene. He'd been secretly waiting for the very last moment to enter, eavesdropping behind the door. Everybody turned to gaze at him.

‘The times have changed!’ Olivert claimed dramatically after a pause, making sure that everyone’s eyes were upon him. ‘Thanks to the wholesome influence of the late chancellor on Erebonia, most of our people support new, better values.’

A whisper ran through the crowd. It was unheard of for Prince Olivert to give credit to the late chancellor, but having done so (unconsciously, to honor the memory of that nice long conversation they have once had), he managed to earn some brownie points even from the most ardent supporters of Rufus Albarea.

The emperor felt irritated. His son was interrupting the important ceremony with something inevitably stupid in mind, as always, and with all those journalists around?! Again he’d have to blush for him and find excuses for his behavior for the newspapers, once again…

‘I offer to throw the elections!’ Olivert stated boldly but joyfully, as if offering to throw a big nice party. ‘Let people choose the chancellor they want.’

There was more than a whisper going through the crowd now.

All of a sudden the emperor felt elated. His son was dumb like a rock, but occasionally he produced a brilliant idea. Well, like in every genius there was a tincture of madness, just the other way around. Thanks to horrible influence of the late chancellor, the Erebonian people grew to appreciate freedom and even he, the emperor, lost any semblance of power. Finally, this was his chance to snatch his right to power back in full, and legally so. And then he’d slowly lull the nation back into their worship of the royalty, just like the chancellor once managed to brainwash so many of them into his harmful and delusional belief of social equality.

The emperor stepped back from Rufus Albarea. The latter’s face displayed shock and clear displeasure.

‘Let it be so,’ The emperor nodded. ‘In three months’ time, we’ll have a new chancellor. Meanwhile, I myself will act as the head of our state.’

The crowd exploded into an applause. Olivert kept bowing flashily and winking into the orbal cameras, most of which were trained in his direction. The emperor looked at his airhead of a son, shaking his head, but thanked him in his mind. Now all he had to do was win the elections, and Erebonia would once again belong to the Reise Arnor family, a possession that had rightfully been theirs for centuries before the late chancellor seized power.

* * *

The new secret base of the Ironbloods was located hell knew where. Nobody else knew, and you'll have to share their ignorance for fairness' sake. Equality and all that... :-)  
  
‘Our trick is to hide ourselves,’ The Icy Maiden explained. ‘While we’re searching for a way to True Freedom, we need to erase ourselves from the sight of these creators. All of them. Any of them. Otherwise they’re going to impede us, dictating us their will.’

She smashed her hand into the table, and its shaky legs started to shake. Lechter gulped. He didn’t want to find himself face to face with the Icy Maiden accidentally one day when he wasn’t fully prepared.  
  
‘Smart beginning,’ Luciola nodded approvingly.  
  
She was seated on a sofa, sipping tea with a nice Eastern taste. Millium was seated nearby. She looked uncharacteristically grim. They still heard nothing from the ‘late’ chancellor and had to assume that he was most likely dead. The Church leaders didn't offer any more comments on the situation, so he was probably dead, even if he had a knack to turn up alive.

Campanella’s attempt to deliver fake salt had failed. It took the Church leaders just one dip of an arrow into the substance he produced and made to look like salt, and the arrowhead melted. Alone, without the rest of the arrow. Then it dawned on Campanella, who naturally knew what happened at the end of Sky: Second Chapter, -- since he happened to be a part of it, -- what kind of mistake he made when he tried to create a substance that ate through  _everything_ , indiscriminately. It should've been spreading first, like a virus, and eating second... Fortunately, he was fast enough to teleport away before he ended up seized.

The door opened, and Osborne entered the room.

Everybody’s eyes bulged so much that they nearly fell out of their sockets. Ries and Kevin entered the room next. They wanted to speak, but after assessing reactions of everybody inside, they decided to wait until their shock subsided a little.

‘G-gramps, you?..’ Millium mumbled, dumbfounded. Then she jumped up from the sofa and propelled herself towards him, like a furry ball of predator. They stood in a hug.

‘You don’t know us, but we’re…’ Kevin opened his mouth.

It was in vain, nobody cared, he realized. Lechter was now rapidly running towards the ex-chancellor. It didn’t take him long, the room was small, and soon he was a second fruit hanging from the ex-chancellor’s tree, so to speak, or rather from his neck. Kevin couldn’t believe his ears, but he thought that he caught faint sounds of sobbing coming from him.

The Icy Maiden turned her gaze away, as if it was painful for her to watch such a display. But apparently she had decency to return Claire’s body to its original host for this moment, and soon Claire became the third fruit. The ex-chancellor swayed a little from their weight, but did not complain. In fact, he looked criminally pleased.

Campanella, sighing reluctantly, walked up to Osborne and joined the fruit basket. He didn’t care for Osborne as a person even remotely that much, but he figured that joining in now was better than receiving an earful from Millium for being a stranger later.

Only Luciola remained seated, which was hardly a surprise. Catching Kevin’s gaze, she patted a deck of cards lying on her lap, but he didn’t get the hint.

‘Both of us were hiding in the room when you discovered the disappearance of the Salt Pale,’ Ries informed them by the way of an explanation. ‘Afterwards we tried to convince the others that it was gone, and gone forever, but they didn’t believe us,  accused us of co-operating with you, named us heretics and put us in jail. We had to break out and we decided to take him with us while we were at it.’

‘You’re the wooden box people!’ Millium said, still clutching to Osborne’s body like a lifesaver. ‘By the way, gramps, your clothes stink…’

‘Well, we weren’t staying in five-star hotels looking for you lot!’ Kevin said, offended. He didn’t mean to, but he’d just let on that his own clothes stank, too. ‘It took a damn long time to find you, even with all his knowledge of your hideouts and habitual mental processes.’

‘Right,’ Lechter happily sighed, his face still buried into Osborne's shoulder. ‘We've been hiding from Rufus all this time. Don't ask, just don't ask.’

‘And I can see that meanwhile,’ Osborne said. ‘The Ironbloods acquired a new member.’

Luciola wasn’t paying attention to them. She was making herself another cup of tea.

‘Yeah, that’s mama Lu,’ Lechter blissfully smiled into the ex-chancellor’s shirt. He just couldn’t force himself to step away, no matter how he tried. ‘Well, you knew that already…’

‘ _Stand apart and listen, I have no time for this_ ,’ Ries suddenly demanded.

Her face shone with unearthly light. Everybody looked at her, even Lechter tore himself off of Osborne and looked. Kevin didn’t look, he gawked.

‘Oh no, not this.’ He finally facepalmed. ‘Beware, everyone, I think she is getting enlightened!’

Everybody stepped back just in case.

The shining concentrated in Ries’s eyes, and she said:

‘ _Finally, that got your attention. I am the creator god who stole your world from Falcom and set your universe onto a different course_.’

Silence fell, but for a very short while.

‘And what do you want?’ Luciola asked coldly.

‘ _Hurry up_ ,’ Ries replied. ‘ _The official release of CS3 is soon. Just in a week or so, the original timeline is going to commence in Japan. Don’t worry, you will not be a part of it, but your past selves will_.’

Nobody ever heard of a world named Japan and they didn’t care for it. Not as long as they weren’t going to be a part of the original crazily messed up timeline with weird creepy crushes and all.

‘Why should we care?’ Lechter voiced everybody’s question.

‘ _Unless you hurry up and finish your parts in my play, the most curious Observers are going to take a peek, or even play in full, the original timeline. And then you’ll be etched forever as those alternative images into their memories_.’

‘You bastard,’ Claire said heartily. ‘You just called our world ‘a play’!’

‘Right!’ Millium said. ‘And why would we care for some Observers and how they're going to remember us?’

‘That’s why we really need to hide...’ Lechter said.

‘From her,’ Osborne nodded in Ries' direction. ‘First and foremost.’

‘ _Mwahaha,_ ’ Ries laughed, but in a mocking way, as if she didn’t mean to laugh like an evil psycho. ‘ _I didn’t expect gratitude, but now I am even a villain. You’re amazing creatures._ ’

That made everyone angy. Creatures? They were human beings, thank you very much! And they certainly didn’t exist just to be looked on for entertainment. One thing was clear to them: the worlds from where these Observers hailed from had to be excruciatingly boring. That was the only rational explanation for why someone would bother to follow their lives.

But as much as everybody pitied the Observers after this conclusion, they still didn’t want to be the objects of entertainment. They wanted some privacy, dammit. Campanella alone enjoyed the latest revelation. Back in Ouroboros he was indoctrinated to think that he existed to entertain and for the first time in his life, he felt one hundred percent fulfilled.

He winked at Ries. Her eyes suddenly lost their shine and she gasped in shock.

‘What happened was that you…’ Kevin started.

‘I remember what happened,’ Ries said, dismissing all amnesiac tropes for mediums that he had in mind. ‘Why did you just wink at me, you underage pipsqueak?'

'Wha-at?!' Millium's face darkened dangerously.

Campanella facepalmed. He'll have to actually explain his weird thought process now. But the wink must've hurt Millium, and that made him feel guilty. He had no way of escaping this, he'll have to relay his weird thoughts to her later.

'I have a feeling that she won’t come back,' Ries continued. 'I sensed the emotion, the finality of it… Well... What now?’

‘Nothing,’ Kevin said. ‘Nothing, absolutely nothing! What, everyone, why are you looking at me like this? Do you actually believe her? That’s nuts…’

‘Stranger things have happened,’ Luciola offered philosophically.

But that got them thinking. Indeed, it was possible that Ries was a medium used by a creator god who ‘stole their world from Falcom’, but how would they know if that was true? Maybe she was insane and they were still in Falcom’s grasp. After all, it was hard to imagine a way to steal a world.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Osborne finally said. ‘No matter who our enemies are, we aren’t going to lose. And you…’ He turned to Luciola. ‘You’ve proven to be quite resourceful before. I don’t want to hear any more of your tarot, however, I want you to help me think up a  _reasonable_  way to thwart the predetermined nature of our lives.’

Osborne looked grim. He was undoubtedly contemplating the fates of all the Erebonian peasants he'd have to leave behind. :-)

‘I had a lot of time to think in prison,’ Luciola shared. ‘And think I did. There is indeed a way to do it.’

She fell silent. But before anyone could ask for clarifications, Kevin said:

'Alright, alright, I know you've all been wondering about me, and yes, I'll stay with you and help. The things we do for family...' He shot a glance towards Ries.

The door opened once again.  
  
'He is here,' Altina intoned dully, coming into the room with Bleublanc in tow.

Noticing healthy and alive Osborne, she paused to smile at him briefly in surprise. That was the extent of the intensity of her feelings. Noticing Luciola, whom she happened to see for the first time after her break-out, she continued:

‘Welcome to the Ironbloods, Grandmast... Grandma.'  
  
Even someone like Luciola couldn't control herself well enough to hide the expression of upset surprise on her face at hearing this. Unexpectedly, Osborne roared with laughter. Altina felt proud that she said something that made him happy and was determined to bring it up again at any occasion.  
  
'You know, Alty,' Lechter said, wearing a doubtful expression on his face. 'I like it that even you have acknowledged yourself as part of our family, but maybe you should dispense with the family thing, just this one time? She isn't  _that_  old. Well, probably…'  
  
Altina felt confused. Come to think of it, she knew that while Lechter liked to call all men around 'old men', a habit Claire had incessantly criticized him for, he never referenced any women as 'old women'. That used to puzzle Altina immensely. Now it puzzled her even more. Shouldn't they all be treated as equal?

 

**THREE MONTHS LATER**

 

‘We’re very grateful,’ Elie McDowell, the new president of Crossbell, smiled. ‘And happy to work with prince Olivert.'

Mueller Vander sighed. The independence for Crossbell was granted by the prince in a show-off grand gesture just today, the same day that he won. But that was not the reason for his sigh.

'Prince Olivert is a worthy new governor, chosen by the public in honest elections', Elie McDowell continued. 'And he will surely strive to bring happiness to Erebonia and all countries around.’  
  
Mueller shook his head. What she tactfully didn’t mention was the way his baby had won the elections. Olivert’s songs and jokes won them for him, to great dismay of everyone sensible in the Erebonian government and the country. At first, Olivert was losing horribly to Rufus Albarea, whose renown as the late chancellor’s protégé gave him a significant advantage over everybody else. He was also losing to his own father, the emperor, who decided to run for the elections, to everyone's surprise. But soon Olivert was struck by a brilliant idea to reveal his full-blown minstrel side to the public. At the very first sight of it, the audience felt deeply shocked and scandalized, but Olivert quickly accused it of prejudice towards princes. Connecting the new values of equality to his minstrel side craftily, he managed to convince the public that he had a right to behave in whichever ways he wanted during the elections. The prince's down-to-earth, even vulgar attitude contrasted with the image of a prince greatly and proved to be so entertaining and endearing that it won him the hearts of the majority.

Thus comedy won over common sense in their very first public elections, Mueller thought grimly to himself. Little did he know what kind of bullet -- even two bullets -- Erebonia had miraculously dodged.


	10. Chapter 9. The Final Chapter

**CHAPTER 9. THE FINAL CHAPTER**

  
A grand party was being thrown in the Imperial Palace this evening. It was honestly not a rare occasion these days: since Prince Olivert became a ruler of Erebonia, parties happened at the palace with frightening regularity. This one was thrown for 'all prince's friends and dear acquaintances' to come together, although everybody and their toy robot was allowed to attend it, too. Olivert really wanted to show his friends how well he was doing now, and every one of them had to come this time. It's not like you can refuse an invitation from a prince, not even in a fictional world.

‘What a nice, deliciously spiced up steak…’ Estelle, the protagonist of Sky games, muttered, taking another bite. ‘This party rocks, so much quality food! Joshua, go grab yourself one.’  
  
‘And bring me an ice-cream while you're at it,’ Renne perked up. ‘With a raspberry on top and a bottle of fine champagne to compliment it.’

* * *

Mueller Vander was not the only one standing beside Olivert these days, at least not at parties. Another unfortunate host, named Jusis Albarea, was stuck along with him. To his chagrin, these days he had to help organize the prince's parties, too, as they've become too massive for Mueller alone to manage. After his brother Rufus disappeared without an explanation after lost elections, Jusis was left to be a sole governor of the Kreuzen province. Yet Olivert insisted that he, of all people, should manage his private affairs, like organizing his parties, because he just CBA to do that himself (not that he actually said _that_ out loud). Jusis worried that the governing process moved slowly and with interruptions in Kreuzen province during days of his absence, but he couldn't refuse a prince.  
  
'Look over there, she’s staring at you!’ Olivert winked at him.  
  
‘I don’t care,’ Jusis said, bored. ‘Women always stare, but they don’t even know me. I’d prefer someone who wouldn’t care for my looks.’  
  
‘You’re a weirdo,’ Olivert said, shaking his head incredulously.  
  
Mueller didn’t think so. He realized that Jusis was: 1) the most handsome guy in Class VII, and 2) he had an attitude of rejecting easy romances, which was an anthitesis to that of a playboy and which girls found extremely attractive in boys; so of course the guy happened to be everyone’s favorite in Cold Steel games. Apparently Jusis wasn’t shallow enough to feel proud of it, though, instead he felt sour that these were literally the only reasons.  
  
‘I’d prefer to be rejected at first,’ Jusis tried to explain to the prince. 'Then I’d get a chance to convince her that I am a person worthy of her notice. And she’d end up liking me for more than just looks.’  
  
‘Would you want someone to walk all over you or ignore you?’ Olivert shrugged. ‘Instead of admiring you, madly and smitten? Haha, that’s so stupid, Jusis, you don’t even know how stupid that sounds… Wait, that's Shera!!! That really is Shera over there!!! She gave in to my begging and came!!! Sorry, I remembered that I'm really busy right now...’  
  
Olivert hurried off towards Shera who just came into the party hall. Jusis and Mueller signed in relief simultaneously, realized that, looked at each other and laughed.

Mueller glanced at Shera furtively. She was not wearing her gypsie outfit anymore, which was surprising. It was too bad that he, a mere NPC, couldn't even talk to her freely.  
  
The public dance was announced, and just to get rid of all the annoying hopeful stares, Jusis had to invite someone to dance. He headed towards a girl with two red pigtails and a sunny disposition, but noticed that a guy she was talking to frowned at him. So she probably wasn’t single. It was too late to head back, so he quickly switched to a random girl standing nearby the two.  
  
‘Would you grant me a dance?’  
  
The random girl turned around to look at him. Her hands were full of food and the bottle of champagne was nested against her chest.  
  
‘Dance? With  _you_?’ She looked at him like he was insane. ‘No, thank you, I’m not touching something with an IQ of a goldfish.’  
  
Jusis looked on, wide-eyed. She was small, much younger than him, she looked delicate, yet she talked... like this.  
  
‘Be grateful that I even deign to look at you,’ the girl sneered. ‘You’ve had the rare fortune to meet the one and only me, in the flesh. Now run, you boring cliché tsundere blondie, before I gut you like a fish!’

Rather than back away at once, Jusis made a mistake of trying to formulate a sentence:

'...'

Apparently that attempt had set her off. She produced a black scythe out of nowhere, and all food fell from her grasp with a loud clank. The black-haired guy nearby tried to get the bottle of champagne, but he was too late, and it noisily landed in pieces on the floor. Everybody's eyes were on the scene by now.  
  
‘Sorry for that!’ The girl with a sunny disposition intervened apologetically. ‘Please ignore us. We have our own nice and friendly atmosphere here, right, little sis? Aah, I see another ice-cream cart, let’s go for it!’  
  
She tugged at the ‘I’ll gut you like a fish’ girl and they promptly took off, running full speed towards the cart and screaming with delight, like little children.  
  
Mueller hmphed. He recognized the random girl. Apparently, she had three PhDs at her age, so it was probably fair of her to think that Jusis’ intelligence is that of a goldfish in comparison to hers.

Searching for words of encouragement, Mueller turned to the young noble who surely felt upset at being publicly humiliated and rejected like this. But he promptly stopped, because he caught a sight of a delighted face instead.  
  
‘What an amazing girl,’ Jusis mumbled, dreamily.  
  
Mueller grimaced. It was so unfair that it drove him mad. He literally had no hope for private life. Literally. All he’d ever done in the games was either hang around Olivert or search for Olivert who ran away on him. That was his sole purpose of existence, his raison d’etre. That and being the butt of Olivert’s gay courtship jokes. It was so upsetting. If someone paid even the slightest attention to him, even if it wasn't Shera, he'd probably be happy and even offer to start a family. Mueller wouldn’t ever find rejection delightful, that’s for sure.

That said, Mueller consoled himself by thinking, with a heavy dosage of gloating, that they were equally miserable. Jusis’ popularity meant that there were a lot of smut fan stories about him floating around (they tried to ban the underground press in Erebonia, but to no avail), which paired him off with Rean Schwartzer, of all people! Mueller shuddered at the thought, he wouldn’t wish such a partner on his worst enemy. The underground writers knew no mercy.

* * *

‘Heeere she iiiis,’ Millium sang cheerfully. She was observing the party using a pair of binoculars, through a window carelessly left wide open at the Imperial Palace.  
  
Her target was an important mark provided by Luciola. Her target was a little, little girl from Crossbell named KeA.  
  
'Your turn, unmasked pervert,' she said.  
  
'I will do my job well,' Bleublanc said with pride. He was wearing neither a mask, nor his usual noble role-playing attire.  
  
Before he disappeared into thin air to do his work, as he was used to in Ouroboros, he glanced at Altina. She caught his glance and wished him luck.

‘Argh,’ Millium growled. ‘Would you two stop this already? Unmasked pervert, always remember that you swore to wait till she grows up. And don’t you dare cheat on her or something while you’re waiting!’

Millium left, shutting the door angrily after herself, and thought meanly that so much time was going to pass till Altina grows up –- a perpetual loli that she was -- that surely she’d have switched to McBurn as an object of her affections by that time. And Bleublanc would end up alone and miserable and too old and wrinkled to find someone else by that point, mwahaha!

Perhaps, Campanella’s sadistic tendencies were rubbing off on her, but Millium didn’t care. Now that she was free of her duties and Bleublanc was gone, maybe she should go and drag McBurn to Altina, even if she had to drag him through all the corridors by the scruff of his neck. They've abducted him from the depression asylum he was still stuck in, on Luciola's request, but he didn't look too happy that his treatment was rudely interrupted and wasn't talking to anyone. How obstinate Well, maybe seeing Altina would finally change that attitude.

* * *

‘I can’t believe it...’ Tio said, being one of Crossbell Arc protagonists and thus appearing obligatorily at this party. ‘The news is so strange. Read it out, someone else, I don’t like attention.’  
  
She didn’t like this noisy party at the Imperial Palace, either, but kept silent about it. Soon the torture would be over, soon.  
  
‘Allow me,’ Elie McDowell said politely, taking the newspaper. ‘Prince Olivert declaring Crossbell Independence… More useless flashy blah blah about him… And here goes something interesting: the Grandmaster of Ouroboros got broken out of jail in the wee hours of the morning three months ago, but only now the news became public. There were no witnesses, but the orbal cameras caught sight of none other than the Ironbloods, all of whom had previously disappeared with no explanation. It’s speculated that the Ironbloods and the Grandmaster of Ouroboros joined forces…’  
  
‘Next page,’ Tio said. She was no good with people.  
  
Elie interrupted herself, turned the page and continued reading out:  
  
‘The decision to make this public was prompted by the fact that many other Ouroboros members were broken out of jail just yesterday, all by various Ironbloods. Yet the Ironbloods were selective. The only Ouroboros agents they broke out were the ones who had previously sworn loyalty to the Grandmaster’s teaching of freedom in court. Now that is strange, indeed.’  
  
‘It sounds like the Ironbloods became crazy about that freedom teaching themselves,’ Lloyd commented incredulously. ‘And now they’re getting Ouroboros rebuilt. Something wicked this way comes…’

Meanwhile Estelle was coming their way, waving wildly.

KeA, a little girl that came with them from Crossbell, perked up at her sight.

'Oh, Estelle!' Elie said. 'I really need to talk to you in private. Would you mind?'

All the protagonists happened to know each other. Such was life in a small world of Zemuria that they'd all met each other across the games. Only Rean was an outsider, as usual.

After the two left, Tio picked up the local newspaper again. It was called 'The Imperial Chronicles' and she couldn't help but wonder why. Everybody else and their toy robot called national newspapers by attaching names of their nations to them, like Crossbell Times or Liberl News. They didn't call their newspapers State Times or Queendom News! Why couldn't Erebonians call their newspaper Erebonian Chronicles, like all normal people did?

Little did she know that empires were associated with evil in all video games, so calling a newspaper 'imperial' was a part of a lazy strategy to brainwash the Observers into accepting someone else's black-and-white judgment without thinking. It was like calling a newspaper 'An Evil Country's Chronicles'.

* * *

They sat in silence for a while, but then Altina finally decided to break it.

‘Your mother kicked me out..’ She said somewhat sadly to McBurn, who'd just been dragged into the room unceremoniously by Millium and dumped on the floor. ‘I tried so hard to ‘make up for my tactless age hints’, like Lechter told me to… Even if I don’t get what it was all about... She _is_ old, so why must I lie... Your motherreally hates me.’

McBurn didn't mean to talk. He really didn't mean to.

‘What exactly did you do?’ he asked anyway.

‘I baked her a cake...’ Altina said innocently. ‘Okay, I bought it at shop, but it’s the thought that counts… And I wrote ‘Luciola the BEST’ on its face with red jam, just like sis told me to... See?’

She pointed at the cake, left on the table all on its lonesome, rejected. McBurn really didn't mean to, he really didn't, but he turned and peered at it.

‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘You really should work on your spelling.’

The words ‘Luciola the BEAST’ adorned the cute-looking cake.

'And what _I_ need is to get back to the asylum,' he sighed. 'The treatment for a chronic case like mine takes a lot more time than this.'

'I know,' Altina said, eyeing the cake in futile search for a spelling mistake. She felt uncharacteristically chatty, as always when McBurn was present. 'I'll help you escape from the Ironbloods... Well, Campy has it worse. He admitted that he enjoyed performing for the Observers, and they drugged him and tied him up...'

'Drugged him?' McBurn asked, alarmed. He still didn't mean to, but that was so wild. 'Who, these 'observers'?'

'No, the Ironbloods. Well, he can teleport away, right? They drugged him and now he can't... Not until it's all over...'

McBurn felt more convinced that ever that he absolutely had to wash his hands off the Ouroboros business. And he absolutely didn't want to restart it all with this Ironblood-Ouroboros united team. They were all insane and they didn't even know it.

* * *

'Please, think it over,' Elie said quietly, taking Estelle by the arm. 'We're all in a terrible situation and it may end in disaster for all of us.'

'But, but... me? And the Erebonian elections? Unlike you, I don't have a political education...'

'Do you think _he_ does?' Elie shot a desperate glance in Olivert's general direction. 'Estelle, you're the number one in all popularity polls, you top even Olivert across the games, and frankly speaking, you're the only one who could possibly ever win against him. We've all seen how he won the elections, at this rate only someone more charismatic than him could hope to win. Besides, I know that you're genuinely kind, unlike him who is kind just for show. We all trust you.'

She looked at Estelle intensely. Estelle wasn't currently radiating any of her splendid charisma, but Elie figured that she was dead tired of this pointless party, just like her.

'But... but I'm stupid,' Estelle objected. 'Everybody in my town thinks so.'

'That's what they were saying in the beginning of the games,' Elie shook her head. 'Just to subvert it later, right? Or maybe because you were a girl and Joshua needed to look superior to you, even though he was not the main protagonist. I didn't know you back then, so I can't really judge. Whatever the case, it's either not true or not true any longer.'

'But I am not even Erebonian...'

'That can be quickly amended,' Elie offered hopefully. 'Rufus Albarea is currently hiding in Crossbell, but he agreed to come out and officially make you a part of his family, by the way of a fabricated marriage.'

'Wow, that's crazy!'

'Desperate times, desperate measures.'

What Elie didn't say was that Rufus was the one to have planned out a coup d'etat, in order to have the next elections come much quicker. As an ex-policeman, Elie had to struggle with that, but even she had to admit that Olivert's rule was disastrous, even though only a few months have passed since he became the chancellor. Even if her helpful attitude towards Rufus was considered a break of national sovereignty, she was too afraid for her own country now to put her own conscience first.

'Okay, I'll think it over,' Estelle smiled. 'If you're asking me for help, the situation is more horrible than I imagined... But right now, can I take our little KeA for a walk?'

* * *

After she departed with Estelle, KeA was nowhere to be found at the Imperial Palace that day or the day after. In fact, she was never heard from again, like so many other mysterious disappearances as of late. In her testimony, Estelle Bright woud claim that she never talked to Elie McDowell at the party and never took KeA for a walk.

* * *

At the end of the party Prince Olivert unexpectedly married a Liberlian bracer named Sherazard. It was unexpected because no one thought a prince would marry a commoner, even if on paper and in his minstrel image he was all for the masses. Olivert, happy to show off as ever, pointed out with a toast how that marriage doubled as his personal affirmative gesture for embracing social equality, which made the public like and respect him even more. Shera wasn’t heard to say much that day, as she was a little too drunk to talk. And it was a truth known to a very limited amount of people, but she only said yes to Olivert because she was too drunk to realize what she was being asked for.

Mueller Vander was paying a lengthy visit to a men's restmroom at the time. He'd have stopped the farce for sure, if only he actually happened to be present on the scene!  
  
Sad days descended onto Erebonia. Not only parties kept being thrown at an increasingly rapid pace at the Imperial Palace, but the prince was often seen drinking with his new wife during the day. Some people said that his wife was to blame for his descent into a party-throwing life style. Some people even blamed the wine -- and not the prince’s natural stupidity -- for what would eventually happen to their country.


	11. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

  

***a picture of President Rocksmith rolls up, smiling triumphantly***

...In the year 1211, Samuel Rocksmith won the elections in Erebonia. Many a person had questioned prince’s Olivert refusal to prevent him from taking part in Erebonian elections. Prince Olivert joyfully declared that being a president of Calvard didn’t mean that he shouldn’t be able to take part in Erebonian elections and that the public reaction displayed nothing but prejudice against presidents. Prince Olivert declared that equality was for all people, not just Erebonians. Many a person had questioned whether he really understood what the word equality meant...

 _Ries whispers_ :

In all parallel worlds I've seen, the coup d'etat planned out by Rufus failed. In all of these worlds, he changed his mind after travelling to Calvard, having a heart-to-heart talk to president Rocksmith and finally finding out that he wasn't his son. He felt so ashamed of his gullibility afterwards that he lost all his zeal to cooperate with Calvard Republic. No heaps of money and no promise of elevated status could possibly change that. So he failed his own planned coup d'etat on purpose at the very last moment and everybody had to wait for honest elections.

In one parallel world only, -- the one where Bleublanc happened to impersonate Estelle after she had a private talk with Elie McDowell, not before, which meant they actually did get to talk, -- the winner of these elections was Estelle. The future of that parallel world was entirely different.

***a picture of the map of Zemuria rolls up, but with no name ‘Erebonia’ on the map***

...After winning the Erebonian elections, Samuel Rocksmith announced that as a democrat, he is pleased to offer independence to any Erebonian province who’d want it. Many a state made a bid for independence. The Kreuzen province was the first, and the masses all over Zemuria were overjoyed to hear about it. It remains unclear to this day what happened to the Kreuzen governer Jusis Albarea, but the rumors optimistically state that he'd been spirited away by his elder brother Rufus, whose whereabouts were and still remain unknown, before the Albarea mansion was torn apart by the multi-thousand Kreuzen mob. They were furious with House Albarea and they had a fair reason to be: apparently, instead of properly governing the province, the young governor spent most of his time in the capital, organizing lavish parties for Prince Olivert. Thus the Kreuzen Province became the Kreuzen State.

But not all provinces were surrendered as bloodlessly as the first one. Many of them, for years, proceeded to be the arena of those with lust for local power, who rallied up the masses to fight for them under the pretext of patriotism and nationalism. Social havoc all over Erebonia resulted in the amount of deaths comparable to losses in a world war. Meanwhile the newspapers continued to praise people’s strength of will and their fight for freedom. In the end, the Erebonian Empire disappeared from the map completely, torn apart into a multitude of smaller countries. The amount of graveyards built during those years was unprecedented and many an undertaker's business has profited. That price was hailed as hard but inevitable. The enlightened mind of Samuel Rocksmith was often reverently mentioned as the one who spurred these wonderful changes on.

Corruption became an everyday reality all over the formerly-Erebonian territories. The mafia and the rich soon de-facto ruled the lands, hiring the politicians to do their bidding with great amounts of money, and the divide between the select few and the rest of the poor got deeper and deeper by year. Soon orbal technologies became only sold in exclusive venues, as no ordinary person could possibly afford a car or a phone...

 _Lechter whispers_ :

On a brighter note, the Albarea brothers found refuge in Liberl! Rufus had no idea why it had to be Liberl, but his brother insisted that if they were to start a new life, it should be Liberl. And it should be Rolent, of all towns.

The locals would soon be amused by a tall blonde man, nickname Roof, who'd often be found chasing angrily after a giggling little girl. She kept teasing him, calling him 'half-peasant', and he'd yell out how he was just too slow to tell that it was a joke, and so what! No one understood the gist of it, but local children found the sight of them very funny. They never approached to find out what the matter was about, however, for they were too afraid of the girl.

Another boy, nickname Juice (or Youth, but kids greatly preferred Juice), was very good with children. He hung out and played with them frequently, and they quickly caught on that he had his sights on the scary little girl. They teased him mercilessly, like only children can, for no luck on that front whatsoever. Passing through that town once, I went fishing, lost passage of time and thus accidentally taught him to fish like a pro! Well, if _that_  doesn't help him become worthy of her attention, then nothing else will. The girl liked (dismembering) fishes.

***a picture of Crossbell's main square, now a fully-fledged market***

The Crossbell State was promptly overrun by refugees who fled for their lives from the formerly-Erebonian territories engulfed in war. With Erebonia gone and no one else to oppose Calvard at every turn, Crossbell became a de-facto state of Calvard Republic, in all but name only. Some people cynically said it was no different from before, when those two countries fought each other economically using their state as a proxy, but others said that there was at least a semblance of balanced power in Crossbell, as none of them could ever fully overcome another.

Homeless refugees drove wages down, as they were eager to work for a chunk of a chicken and a place to sleep for the night, and soon Crossbell was plunged into poverty like it hadn't seen before. These days, it was habitual for a few families to occupy the same one-room apartment, all sleeping on the floor. Toilets never appeared, and even sewers became occupied by refugees. The refugees quickly realized that sewers provided them with roof over their head and fishing spots. And they were free! The lucky refugees who happened to occupy the sewers first didn't even have to buy food to eat, they could just fish for a living.

After catching on to this oversight, the businessmen of Crossbell went on a buying spree and bought fishing spots all around Crossbell State. They were now selling fishing licenses to refugees. Currently there was a business movement made by a few companies to buy out Geofront, -- a Crossbell name for their massive sewage system, -- to leave the sewage refugees without free (undeserved) home and food and make them pay for that, those lazy bums...

The Mishelam resort was still the best attraction for tourists in Zemuria. Owned mostly by Calvardian businessmen these days, it enticed the rich all over the world to visit its wonderful Theme Park and quiet beaches. The Orchis Tower, the tallest building in Zemuria, that housed Crossbell government and big businesses together, stood ever proud, looking over the world of opportunities it had created.

 _KeA whispers_ :

_I miss you, everyone. It's crazy over there, but I know you're doing fine. *sobs*_

***a picture of an old wrinkled lady with a kind look**

**(and with a massive airbomber in the background)***

But starkly different was the fate of Liberl. Refugees never drove wages down in Liberl, as they were all freely allowed, by the royal decree, to fish for food and to sleep in sewers. They weren't, how do we put it, desperate and needy enough to drive the wages down much? Settling gratefully in towns of Liberl, people all but worshipped the queen for her wise and kindly rule, for there was not a big divide among the poor and the rich.

Liberl remained a peaceful country all throughout the turmoil. While praising the queen for her peaceful strategy of co-existence with other powers of Zemuria, little did the public know that Queen Alicia was not merely an old kind lady, but an owner of a huge stash of airbombers, which lay unused, yet greatly deterred anyone from acting rash towards Liberl. According to the game lore, Zeiss Factory in Liberl produced superior aircrafts to anyone else's, and it would be quite silly of the queen to allow for those aircrafts to be sold left and right, unless she was a hidden businessman. So naturally she disallowed it. Instead, she used the funds assigned for toilet building to construct and house the aircrafts, and in the end, her stash became so great that even Calvard gave Liberl a wide berth. Thus toilet facilities in Liberl were continuously being traded for a life of peace. Here's the big toilet mystery solved...

While all that might come as a surprise to hear about, signs of Queen Alicia's shrewdness have been strewn all over the games. Do you remember how two superpowers, Calvard and Erebonia, signed a temporary peace treaty proposed by a third wheel Queen Alicia in Sky games? Back then, it was unthinkable for two world superpowers at each other's throats to ever sign a peace treaty, yet they did. It was, indeed, unthinkable, if the only thing that compelled them to do so would be the old queen's charisma. It was her big stash of airbombers that compelled them. Both governments preferred to see Liberl ever uninvolved in international affairs, and if the price of that was a forced peace treaty, then so was it.

Naturally, the peace treaty was trampled all over later, but it became possible only after two worst enemies, Calvard and Erebonia, conspired in the Crossbell Arc. Just think of it, how much power did the queen actually wield that it took two superpowers to conspire just to dare to break a peace treaty forced on them by her?

What about Erebonia's attempt to invade Liberl in Sky games, you ask? Why, if you played Sky: the 3rd, then you know that Osborne's attempt at invasion was a fake maneuver performed for entirely different reasons and with no actual intent to conquer. You also know that Queen Alicia saw through that. So, well, no offense was taken by the queen! :-)

And so, Liberl remained ever neutral and prosperous and quiet, a queendom preaching peaceful co-existence between nations, love and understanding.

 _Altina whispers_ :

I don't know what to say... *midly shocked* No comments... (But this is why our HQ is in Liberl, right?..)

 _Millium whispers_ :

Hoho, such a contrast! But to those in more unfortunate places, it's all but unthinkable to get to Liberl. They don't have money to travel that far, you know?! So as usual, only the relatively well-off people were able to travel to that place of better life, all the rest stayed where they were and coped as they could. Well, mostly they died... Dammit, I start to feel blue, what the heck, where's my Campy?! Time to wake him up from that drug-induced sleep, I need some entertainment in my life, and he'll be happy to crack jokes!

  ***an old picture of Prince Olivert with his wife Shera, still happy and smiling***

...Prince Olivert, who had once unwittingly provided an opening for amazing Erebonian Revolution that delivered everyone to equality and freedom they deserved, was at one point divorced by his wife. The news hit everyone hard, for it was widely known how much the prince had loved her. Apparenly Sherazard loved the prince's servant more, for she married Mueller Vander just a tad bit later after her divorce. She was known to comment that she finally found a worthy and caring man, in the Imperial Palace of all places, and that even her marriage ordeal with the prince was worth it, in the end.

The public grumbled, and the mass media earned more ratings by calling her ungrateful and a cheater.

One day the prince disappeared without a trace. Some people said that he commited suicide, unable to live on after Sherazard's betrayal. Others added that before he disappeared they’d seen him going to graveyards and solemnly standing there for hours without a word -- completely sober, which was unusual for him as of late. They, too, interpreted that as him contemplating his death. Yet others, more shrewd, claimed that he’d been spotted in one of underground True Freedom cults, which began sprouting all over Zemuria in the wake of Ouroboros trial, like mushrooms after rain. They speculated that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't his own death that the prince was contemplating at graveyards, but that of millions and millions of others. Most scandalously, some people whispered that he’d joined the Ironbloods... but who’d believe a rumor that absurd?

 _The Icy Maiden whispers_ :

Speaking of True Freedom cults, even the most astute thinkers and journalists took to denigrating them. Or rather, those ones disparaged them the most. They called True Freedom worship an escapist strategy of people who were desperate not to face the reality they were living. For they technically chose that reality, where good and evil traded places, unlike old trusted tropes that everybody knew and was accustomed to. Little did they know that there was not a single good choice at all.

Oh, so you want to know more? Or maybe you're Falcom and you're expecting the credits to roll and to cheer at seeing your names? No credits for the likes of you, peeping observers, and no credits for Falcom or that thief of a creator god! What, do you think that's quite a rude and abrupt way to end our story? Or that I shouldn't call you names? But it is our story and not yours, and you're the ones to blame, Observers. I know you're listening, yes, you. Don't blame our lives on creator gods alone, they've created a story that you, yes, you, would like to see. Or maybe even that you wouldn't like to see, if some creator god happened to care for 'realism' (*rolls eyes*) or be old plain sadistic. It's all the same, as far as we're concerned: it's catering to someone's tastes! At the end of the line, all that creator gods have ever done was dehumanize us and mistreate us _for you_.

We'll change it all! Our mangled psyches and dignities, our destroyed countries and dead dreams...

Farewell, True Villains, and I tell that to you from all of us, with great pride and greater wrath: May the Ironbloods haunt your dreams forever.

* * *

The screen goes blank. There's nothing more to see.


	12. P.S.

**P.S.**

 

**From 'the thief of a creator god':**

I didn't want to add this section, I did not. The Ironbloods dismissed us all so rudely that I was upset and wanted to have nothing to do with them at all. But still, I care for their drama -- it's good that they aren't here to see me call it thus, -- and so I want to clarify a point or three.

If you keep wondering why the Grandmaster of Ouroboros sometimes could and sometimes couldn't read the tarot cards correctly, the answer is: she always could. She just lied that she couldn't and made fake divinations whenever she felt like it. Why? Well, you'd take to lying, too, if you could read everyone's heart and even the future would present itself to you correctly, without fail. Maybe you'd _want_  to mess things up, first by failing to relay the future correctly with words and hoping it plays out differently, then by creating the whole organization meant to mess with all that predetermined madness. It's really no surprise that Luciola lied to everybody left and right, just to keep herself sane.

If you've found random flashes of fourth wall breaking knowledge that many characters experienced odd: those were occasional flashes of enlightenment, granted to them from yours truly, the 'thief' (*rages, but to no avail*). They didn't amount to much, however, as none of characters was able to face the full truth. Only one miserablely underdeveloped character could, and she was chosen to deliver a full enlightenment interface to the Ironbloods... But oh well, that didn't go so well with them. :-(

Most importantly, if you're still unsure how the Ironbloods managed to hide Zemuria from the sight of all of us, you haven't played the Crossbell Arc. Well, sorry, but I had to find a solution that existed in the game lore, rather than create an awkward deus ex machina of my own. That would be cheating!!! Since not many players have played these games so far, I felt like I couldn't spoil them in the fic by actually explaining the method in any more detail.

The future is wide open with a trick they've used, though. And perhaps it's fine that we won't know what it's going to be like. That means they've all escaped, together with the whole totality of their world, and we still managed to see a part of their story! It would've been better without the anger and the insults (*grumbles*), but it looks like everybody won.

Now, on to someone else's psyche to mangle, someone else's dead dreams to savor!


End file.
